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What are some TrueNAS alternatives? (lemmy.zip)
submitted 6 months ago* by to c/selfhosted@lemmy.world
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In case you didn't hear TrueNAS is going partially closed source. However, there seems to be a lack of alternatives.

Any ideas on what to move to?

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[–] 5 points 6 months ago (5 children)

This probably doesn't apply to TrueNAS, but technically, it's possible to close a GPL project. You'd need the permission of every last contributor to relicense their code, or they'd have to rewrite all the code they can't get relicensed (e.g., someone said no or already died), or they could do it if they never accepted any pull requests because they would then be the sole copyright holder and have the freedom to relicense at their whim.

I can't vouch for TrueNAS, but most open source projects accept pull requests because free labor, whether they're corporate projects or not, so I'd assume they can't freely relicense without a hell of a headache, so yeah, it's probably staying open for the foreseeable future.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (4 children)

    They would likely have to rewrite the linux kernel right? I've never heard of a single project being granted taking the kernel private. If they were going to do that they would find it easier to rebase back on FreeBSD. They just switched to linux and invested a ton into the switch. The switch already cost them a bunch of users and dissent, the current narrative is causing more.

    There will be forks of all the current code either way.

    I would be more worried about the cheap Chinese hardware people are using that utilizes the linux kernel and other code that doesn't contribute back to the project or release their code.

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  • [–] 3 points 6 months ago (2 children)

    Yeah, no, they couldn't do it to the kernel. But that's not really the interesting part of their product. It's all the software that they as a company hold the copyright to. If they solely hold copyright on all their own code or if they have permission to relicense from their contributors, they can take any or all of their products closed source, and when I say "their products" I specifically mean the things they as a company produce, which they built on top of open source projects that they don't control.

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  • [–] 1 point 6 months ago (1 child)

    Agreed. But anything that is released as open source will still exist even if they move to closed source. So another group can take that code and continue to develop it as a new project.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    True, but unless that new group is willing to step up and invest in physical device production to directly compete, I don't think it's going to be the same. The type of people buying a dedicated NAS with a custom OS are looking for as close to a plug and play solution ad they can get. They're less inclined to reinstall the OS on their new NAS, and the market is probably going to favor the now proprietary version TrueNAS sells, especially if they take steps to make it difficult to replace the OS on their devices.

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  • [–] 2 points 6 months ago

    I believe this doesn't apply to the Linux kernel. I mean there is a lot of products that include a Linux kernel and runs proprietary code on top.

    I'm not really certain about the legalities, but IIRC it has to do with Linux being licensed under GPLv2 instead of GPLv3(?)

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