Immich v1.109.1 released with optional paid license

From Discord

Copy this to custom CSS in the adminpanel and the license banner is gone:

.license-status{
display:none !important;
}

It is possible to set the status to licensed too vua the database, but I didn't try it.

I hope it will only be this banner. Kavita has had a donation button too and 2 updates further it was a floating button. The whole thing about licensing is heavily discussed on Discord.

For me, the license stuff is odd. They offer a license model with two tiers (user / server), yet the license seems to do nothing. Also, it is a one time payment which will likely not be substantial in the future.

Why not create a "supporter" tier for maybe $2 per month or so, this would bring some recurring income without the fears of paywalling the product.

Is feel a lot better about this if it was a "supporter" tag not this "unlicensed" crap.

Declaring the use without a paid license as “Unlicensed” is very misleading since the project is also licensed under the GNU AGPL v3.0.

After listening the video where they discussed immich joining futo, I don't have any worries. I have high hopes futo might actually be the company I have long hoped would emerge. Time will certainly tell.

I think people are getting hung up on the word license too much. Though I agree futo should have gone with a better word choice for clarity. License just means supporter in this case.

I’ll repeat here what I said on discord:

I’m no fan of stallman, but I like his quote: “I’m happy to pay for good software so long as it’s free”.

It’s important to remember that anyone with the skill to work on this project could earn a pretty good living elsewhere. We can debate the terminology, but at the end of the day devs gotta eat.

Personally, so long as it stays on the GPL they can call us “god-kings” and “filthy peasants” for all I care

Important bits that came up in the discord and I haven’t seen here:

• User license is only there to make it cheaper for small instances.No word I’ve seen on transitioning from a user license to a server license down the road. Looks like you can switch by contacting them, and they have plans to do it automatically in the future.
• It looks like enforcement is basically nonexistent. You could activate multiple servers with one license, or just flip a value in the db yourself
• The reason they aren’t using “supporter” or “contributor” is because they don’t want it to sound like charity. It’s a transaction.

They could have achieved the same without any license keys. Just a "Purchase" button along with an "Already purchased" one. You make the ethical judgement as to which one to click. The purchase page could have a few suggested prices along with a pay what you want option, one time and recurring.

Also I'm not too sure why FUTO are allergic to the term Donate. There's a whole generation of people who got taught how it works and what it does by Wikipedia. Slap a funding bar with a brief explanation for what it funds, add the donation options and everyone would know what's it for and why they should donate if they can.

Anyway. Purchased the thing and I'll keep supporting them till it's GPL.

I don't mind this model. That being said for me Immich is great but has a fatal flaw that has prevented me from using it: it doesn't do updates.

For me that's a big one, everything else I self host I have a docker compose pointing to latest, so eventually I do a pull and up and I'm done, running the latest version of the thing. In Immich this is not possible, I discovered the hard way that they are not backwards compatible and that if you do that you need to keep track of their release notes to know what you need to manually do to update.

I haven't settled on a self-hosted photo management because of this. In theory Immich has almost everything I want (or more specifically, all of the other solutions I found lack something), but having to keep track of releases to do manual upgrades is stupid, this is a software, it should be easy to have it check the version on start and perform migration tasks if needed.

EDIT: they've adjusted the language and integration of buying the Immich software. It's much clearer and balanced now. You can find the new info on their github announcements page, or likely in the notes of their next immich release.

ORIGINAL COMMENT
I was really looking forward to them opening a compensation option as I got in after they had taken down donation links, but this is all a bit weird. There is some good discussion happening on the github announcement page. I'll probably hold at version 1.108 for awhile until the dust settles.

I've gone through quite a few FUTO videos since they started sponsoring Immich, and it seems like the issue is that they are essentially an organization of engineers that don't have a strong background in the legalese of licensing (thus the lack of attention to the wording of the original FUTO temporary license). Their intentions and goals are solid from my perspective and the software they promote is fantastic, but it feels very much like an org run by idealistic engineers without much of a PR presence. The best PR they have is Louis Rossman, take that as you will 😄

All that being said, I have paid for a few of their other pieces of software that are single user. The part I'm not overly fond of is that it seems to be a payment for each individual user, and not a payment to be able to run the server itself. I'm sure there is rational behind it, but it just feels like this whole licensing element isn't fully baked yet.

I am a huge fan of immich, been running it for quite a while, it started as just phone photo backup but it’s good enough that I’ve made it my primary photo repository (fully backed up of course). I will absolutely pay for a license but count me as one who doesn’t really like the terminology used.

I would happily put a donated or supporter badge to show off, but the unlicensed just feels a bit wrong. I have no trouble paying for software, especially as useful as immich, but in the enshittifying world we live in, such language gives one pause.

My biggest question to FUTO/Immich is if they're worried about a revenue stream, why not do something similar to Home Assistant? You never have to pay HASS a dime and never see anything to "shame" you. All you get is essentially a forwarding subdomain with some "easier" ways of doing cloud related things. There's zero "shaming" or calls to pay. I pay HASS/Nabu Casa monthly cause I'm lazy and it makes my life easier. FUTO should consider doing something similar.

Why does FUTO have to shoot itself in the foot?

There is as far as I can tell no new actual license just a payment scheme and some shaming functionality. They even offer you the software if you don't pay. Remember the GPL allows them to require payment to give you the software, they just can't prohibit someone else giving you the software.

However calling unpaid copies unlicensed is incorrect, they are licensed under the GPL (just like paid ones are).

They should remove references to licensing and display something like "This instance of Immich has been paid/not been paid for." Call the key PRODUCT key.

Sure some find the "pay or shame" scheme distasteful but it is not against the GPL which allows commercial use.

This was planed from the begging of these guys developing the project. Don’t be naive guys. What o don’t like is the lack of transparency . It started as complete open and now it’s adding the “but” like many projects already did .

Permanently Deleted

I like having more ways to support the project, but I don't think "license" is the correct terminology they should use, unless they intend to release paid-only features which I'm not a fan of at all.

I wanted to like immich but I hate the way it imports images and creates its own structure.

I can't say I support FUTO but if they are looking to drive development I am all for it

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

3 acronyms in this thread; the most compressed thread commented on today has 4 acronyms.

[Thread #878 for this sub, first seen 19th Jul 2024, 06:45] [FAQ] [Full list] [Contact] [Source code]

Wish end to end encryption was on their roadmap

Does this mean I have to pay to use immich now? Huh?

Nothing like that is ever acceptable to show up on the dashboard of a service I am self hosting. Will not update Immich anymore unless they remove this garbage.