xcp-ng Pro "alert" in the XOA pools page
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There's a new great big red "bang" in the pools page that links to sales info for paid support for xcp-ng.
I recognize that folks need to make a living and that freeware comes with tradeoffs but my understanding is that xcp-ng came about as a response to Citrix making their hypervisor into crippleware. We switched to xcp-ng and XOA because we're a non-profit with almost literally no money for IT. Should we be concerned that xcp-ng might go the same way Citrix did?
And is there a way to acknowledge / disable those red alerts in the XOA interface? This is not a "critical error" situation.
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Hi,
It's not a freeware (see the definition of freeware), nor freemium. It's not even open core. It's entirely open source and the full software without any limitation, with paid support.
In fact much more than just support. I suggest you read this blog post I wrote: https://xcp-ng.org/blog/2022/05/06/my-vision-for-open-source-pro-support/
If you run this in production, not having support might be critical if you don't know what you do. However, if you don't care because you know what you do, then just ignore it
On our side, we must be sure that the moral contract is clear. You can use the software without limitations and without paying anything, but in that case, you are on your own. We won't provide pro support you if you subscribe after an incident. Because support is also making sure that you are running the software properly AND to contribute to pay people to make all the updates and new features you have every months.
You have the choice to use it without paying for support with all features (to enjoy it entirely without any limitations). I think you can manage to deal with some red triangles
edit: those "folks" are now 30 people behind both XCP-ng and Xen Orchestra
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Thank you for your reply. And my bad for using the word "freeware" carelessly. And yes, while I have opinions on cluttering an interface with big red alerts that aren't actually problem, along the lines of a signal to noise thing and desensitizing users to actual problems, I can live with it as a cost of getting this stack for free. Have I mentioned how glad we are to be rid of Citrix? Not just the cost, but their increasingly convoluted, noisy and unusable sales and support systems?
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That's why we try to keep things simple. Also, remember you aren't the only user in the world, with your own reasons to not pay for it.
Sadly (as usual with some humans), there's some people abusing it, eg selling it to people not aware of who is doing support, while doing 0 contribution. That's a way for us to be sure the end user will be aware about having official support (or not). This is important.
In any case, you get rid of Citrix thanks to our solution, and it seems you managed to get rid of the product cost. Good for you, but please remember this cost to make the product is not magically disappearing. It's just reported to others who decided to contribute via the pro support
Accepting this red triangle is just the solidarity needed (or the gratitude if you prefer to see it this way), to use everything for free
In my opinion, it's an acceptable trade off without closing it or doing open core (the last one will be probably a lot easier for us to make more money). -
You make a good point about costs not just disappearing because we externalize them. Gonna have to think about how we can pay our way without actually being able to pay. Active participation in the forums, maybe.
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Participating on the forum is a totally acceptable form of contribution. And to be clear: you have the choice. The choice to do nothing, or to help the project to grow. It's really up to you
Freedom of choice is great! Everyone can contribute, spread the word and advocate for our solutions. And believe me, if everybody does, we stand a chance against those juggernauts (VMware for example).Also, you have my words, and I'm not afraid to tell that publicly: every $ we make is 100% re-invested into our projects. No big VC nor investors asking for insane ROI.
