Re:The Realities of Being a FOSS Maintainer
by stordoff on Saturday September 16, 2017 @01:45PM
(#15265663)
FWIW, the changes to Caddy mean I won't be using it going forward.
* I'm not going to build from source - the key differentior for me was that Caddy was _simple_. If I need to build from source, that goes away. ("I do find it ironic that the open source community is so irate about having to compile software from source to customize it the way they want" misses the point IMO - a key selling point of Caddy was HTTP2/SSL with minimal configuration, attracting people far beyond the "open source community").
* The promotional header is a non-starter for me. My current site very deliberately shows no ads and relies on as few external services/resources as possible, so I'm not happy embedding an ad in every request (I know it has been reverted, but it's still shown on https://caddyserver.com/pricing which would make me concerned about it coming back).
* The personal/commercial licence split is something I don't want to have to worry about. Currently the personal licence is fine, but what if I decide to add ads to get a few pounds a month back? It's not something I really want to have to think about.
* Pricing - I would consider paying to avoid the header/concerns about personal/commercial split, but starting at $1200/year (billed annually) is a complete non-starter. It's nowhere near what I could afford, but I'm also not seeing why you would pay that - basic email support doesn't seem compelling, there are no additional features over the free version, and it seems any company who could afford to pay it would also be in a place to build from source (or pay for an nginx consultant and get a comparable feature set).
Of course the Caddy devs are entitled to make these changes, but they make it into something I don't want to use.
Two other quick points while I'm here:
* Brand guidelines of "Please do not call it Caddy Server" seem strange when the main domain is caddyserver.com
* Linking to an EULA (from the footer of caddyserver.com) that contains e.g. "{{if eq .Type "personal"}}" is less than useful.
* I'm not going to build from source - the key differentior for me was that Caddy was _simple_. If I need to build from source, that goes away. ("I do find it ironic that the open source community is so irate about having to compile software from source to customize it the way they want" misses the point IMO - a key selling point of Caddy was HTTP2/SSL with minimal configuration, attracting people far beyond the "open source community").
* The promotional header is a non-starter for me. My current site very deliberately shows no ads and relies on as few external services/resources as possible, so I'm not happy embedding an ad in every request (I know it has been reverted, but it's still shown on https://caddyserver.com/pricing which would make me concerned about it coming back).
* The personal/commercial licence split is something I don't want to have to worry about. Currently the personal licence is fine, but what if I decide to add ads to get a few pounds a month back? It's not something I really want to have to think about.
* Pricing - I would consider paying to avoid the header/concerns about personal/commercial split, but starting at $1200/year (billed annually) is a complete non-starter. It's nowhere near what I could afford, but I'm also not seeing why you would pay that - basic email support doesn't seem compelling, there are no additional features over the free version, and it seems any company who could afford to pay it would also be in a place to build from source (or pay for an nginx consultant and get a comparable feature set).
Of course the Caddy devs are entitled to make these changes, but they make it into something I don't want to use.
Two other quick points while I'm here:
* Brand guidelines of "Please do not call it Caddy Server" seem strange when the main domain is caddyserver.com
* Linking to an EULA (from the footer of caddyserver.com) that contains e.g. "{{if eq .Type "personal"}}" is less than useful.