This is disappointing, time to migrate from yet another was-open-source-now-only-technically-open-source software.
At work the trend is only adopt open source on a paid plan, adopting or relying on open source otherwise is just waiting for the rug to be pulled. Essentially treat open source as closed source.
Oftentimes the alternative is migrating to one dying or unstable zero-funding open source project to the next.
Which path you go down depends on a lot of factors of that particular piece of software.
Can I trust FreeCORE to be a stable, secure project that hangs on to my NAS data if it’s an unfunded fork? Or would it be better to give up some openness for something like TrueNAS SCALE?
When it comes to stuff like Proxmox and TrueNAS I think a lot of what keeps those good products for homelab use is the fact that they have commercial customers paying for the development. I can count on TrueNAS being around and getting updates because they have a proven revenue stream.
That said, it’s a balance, because sometimes that commercialization becomes a rug pull. A lot of the viability of those projects for homelab use revolves around the companies that put those products out recognizing that they have a customer base that will not pay and accepting that fact without deciding to try to squeeze out every last person who just might pay by compromising the free edition.
To be clear I’m also not saying FreeCORE specifically is a fly-by-night project or unstable or anything. I’m genuinely unfamiliar with it. I’m just saying, sometimes projects like that end up not being the right choice for certain use cases.
What a shame I didn't discover this sooner -- I finally sent my 11-year-old TrueNAS system[1] through the one-way Linux door about a year ago because I gave up on any hope that something like this would come along and I didn't see another way to keep it current.
The migration path went smoothly but I preferred the FreeBSD setup if only because it forced me to do something a bit more interesting in my spare time. I do quite a lot of Linux work in my day job and it was nice to occasionally work on something that was surface-level similar but subtly and not-so-subtly different.
[1] Over 11 years I have replaced every component (even the CPU/motherboard) at least once except for the case. Migrating from MBR to UEFI was "fun".
Who is behind this? I've been burned once with nas, and I watched the long Plex to Jellyfin saga. What assurance do I have that this will continue to be developed and will become good?
I did the migration to Linux and it actually was painless. I didn't really notice any degradation or hiccups in any way. But I guess this is a good option if FreeBSD is important to you.
This seems nice. FreeBSD always seemed nicer than Linux, though now that Linux is being developed by LLMs and Torvalds is vibe-coding, I wonder if they'll be able to keep up.
As far as I understand, Torvalds said that he is not going to oppose all AI-generated improvements to Linux, not that he's vibe coding new kernel modules for fun.
Worth noting that TrueNAS recently stopped publishing their build scripts, intentionally making it harder to build their open source code.[0]
[0] https://forums.truenas.com/t/clearing-the-air-on-build-scrip...
This is disappointing, time to migrate from yet another was-open-source-now-only-technically-open-source software.
At work the trend is only adopt open source on a paid plan, adopting or relying on open source otherwise is just waiting for the rug to be pulled. Essentially treat open source as closed source.
How did we end up with this state of affairs?
Oftentimes the alternative is migrating to one dying or unstable zero-funding open source project to the next.
Which path you go down depends on a lot of factors of that particular piece of software.
Can I trust FreeCORE to be a stable, secure project that hangs on to my NAS data if it’s an unfunded fork? Or would it be better to give up some openness for something like TrueNAS SCALE?
When it comes to stuff like Proxmox and TrueNAS I think a lot of what keeps those good products for homelab use is the fact that they have commercial customers paying for the development. I can count on TrueNAS being around and getting updates because they have a proven revenue stream.
That said, it’s a balance, because sometimes that commercialization becomes a rug pull. A lot of the viability of those projects for homelab use revolves around the companies that put those products out recognizing that they have a customer base that will not pay and accepting that fact without deciding to try to squeeze out every last person who just might pay by compromising the free edition.
To be clear I’m also not saying FreeCORE specifically is a fly-by-night project or unstable or anything. I’m genuinely unfamiliar with it. I’m just saying, sometimes projects like that end up not being the right choice for certain use cases.
What a shame I didn't discover this sooner -- I finally sent my 11-year-old TrueNAS system[1] through the one-way Linux door about a year ago because I gave up on any hope that something like this would come along and I didn't see another way to keep it current.
The migration path went smoothly but I preferred the FreeBSD setup if only because it forced me to do something a bit more interesting in my spare time. I do quite a lot of Linux work in my day job and it was nice to occasionally work on something that was surface-level similar but subtly and not-so-subtly different.
[1] Over 11 years I have replaced every component (even the CPU/motherboard) at least once except for the case. Migrating from MBR to UEFI was "fun".
The NAS of Theseus
Who is behind this? I've been burned once with nas, and I watched the long Plex to Jellyfin saga. What assurance do I have that this will continue to be developed and will become good?
There's also bsdnas: https://bsdnas.com
I did the migration to Linux and it actually was painless. I didn't really notice any degradation or hiccups in any way. But I guess this is a good option if FreeBSD is important to you.
AT first I was very confused, then I realized that this is building on TrueNAS CORE, and not TrueNAS SCALE. Makes much more sense now!
oh man, just as I upgraded to the debian TrueNAS
Thank you, you made my day 100% better
This seems nice. FreeBSD always seemed nicer than Linux, though now that Linux is being developed by LLMs and Torvalds is vibe-coding, I wonder if they'll be able to keep up.
As far as I understand, Torvalds said that he is not going to oppose all AI-generated improvements to Linux, not that he's vibe coding new kernel modules for fun.
Torvalds is mostly merging code in the kernel, not writing modules. He claims he's a manager now: https://www.zdnet.com/article/open-source-summit-linus-torva...
But he's very pro-ai, though, and is vibe closing other projects like https://www.phoronix.com/news/Linus-Torvalds-Vide-Coding