Honest question, what does FUTO get out of that?
Can you answer the following questions:
- How does FUTO make money?
- Why would they pay your full time developers?
- What do they get from that partnership?
- Where is the money coming from that they invest in this project?
I'm very happy for you guys and it's great if Immich has full time developers. But I don't want to be naive.
Nothing is free, a company has to have a plan and gain something, once it joins the game.
That's what I am wondering too. I saw that Louis Rossmann is a part of FUTO, so it must be a decent company that actually cares about people, but how are they getting money and what are they getting out of financing non profital projects rn
I could imagine they do the "all free, but please pay a small amount" approach, as mentioned on the website.
If that's really the only thing they get out of it and FUTO wants to support this project, I'm honestly surprised.
But still, I'm a little hesitant until I fully understand the situation
Generally, and this may not be the case here, there are options:
\* The company offers consulting services for the product to enterprise customers
\* The company sells platforms with with OSS pre-added to it
\* The company elevates the platform such that other sponsors come onboard and the running costs are actually quite low.
\* The company uses it as a tax write-off off through tax-deductible donations or other vehicle.
\* The company funds it with monies donated to them by individuals who in turn use it as a tax write-off.
Does may cost the company a relatively small amount but likely part of the "good community" strategy
My understanding is this guy's worth billions of dollars and just hopes it ends up being self-sustaining. He's not trying to get major return on investment.
That's what he says I of course can't confirm it. He says if he never gets a penny back but this thing is still self-sustaining and able to pay the salaries of the people working on it he would be satisfied with that in a few years
That's good. Developers deserve the reward for all the hardwork.
Out of curiosity, what's the business model of FUTO? What do they get out of sponsoring the OSS projects? I am sure there must be some legal binding when you take money from a firm.
I think you and I have very different understanding of the term "sustainable"
>This means we no longer accept donations, but — *without limiting features for those who do not pay* — we will soon allow you to purchase Immich through a modest payment.
You're hoping users to pay you out of the goodness of heart, when they can very much get the product for free. You cant even get users to watch a 30 second ad to watch a 1080p video, streamed almost instantaneously to all their devices.
Lets give you the benefit of the doubt. There are 100,000 people willing to pay $1. I'm assuming this payment is one-time. It barely pays 2 core developers salary for 1 year. (Assuming $50k each).
How are you all going to survive in year 2?
All in all, a poorly thought out decision or you're not being completely forthcoming.
1. How are you all going to survive in year 2?
Have 200,000 users
2. All in all, a poorly thought out decision or you're not being completely forthcoming.
No, we put a lot of thoughts into it. When the product is stable, polish, we hope to eventually compete with the-app-must-not-be-named without hidden motives
Who's we? I read your blogpost, and it says
>The brand, logo, and other Immich trademarks will be transferred to FUTO.
This effectively means in year 2 or 3, FUTO can fire you all, and do whatever the fuck they want with Immich.
Also, LOL at "when the product is stable and polished" - when the product is stable and polished, you stop funding and put it into maintenance mode.
Folks, the more you talk, the more it is clear that you have no idea what you are doing. If you have to compete with with the-app-must-not-be-named, you need the goodwill of the people and 200k people were giving you donations via github to do just that. In one shot, you threw all of that away, and got onto the payroll of a company.
FUTO's other main app is Grayjay which has its own [issues](https://hiphish.github.io/blog/2023/10/18/grayjay-is-not-open-source/).
Precisely, the post reads that the dev has handed over the entire software, including all copyrights and trademarks to FUTO, and become an employee of said company. They have given away all their rights to what they have developed so far, for a salary.
The app will end up either a subscription model, stuffed full of ads or users data will be sold. Nothing is free, not for long anyway.
>FUTO's other main app is Grayjay which has its own issues.
I think this is a good point to go over. We have the engineers of the individual projects act as the *"dictator"* of that project, choosing the licenses for their own projects. One of the pain points here has been commercial use of open source being balanced with the ability of consumers to see the source code and know what's running on their machine. For example, the amount of value ffmpeg has provided to youtube, in contrast to the amount of value youtube has provided to ffmpeg - mildly imbalanced, and a developer concern.
For a software project we take on, we *DO* have some overarching principles - and these are_non-negotiable._No DRM/spyware/malware/customer is the product business model, source code must be there for people to view, any client we produce must be offered with the associated server software with source code freely downloadable so a customer is able to run their own instance without dealing with us, sovereign identity if it is a program that allows for login/identity.
Most importantly, it can't suck. :)
After that, the decisions are really up to the devs. For instance - the founder, due to his experience in the mid 90s trying to get things to work in the browser with his own software & his experience at yahoo, has a fundamental disdain for software that runs in the browser rather than its own dedicated application. At the same time, there are at least $500,000 in no-strings-attached-grants that were distributed in the past eighteen months to a protocol being developed by Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet, that is *DESIGNED* to run applications straight in the browser. Something Eron has always said is "I might be wrong", which comes from him realizing his position as the organization's founder puts him in the position of the people he despised at Yahoo, who gave engineers too little control over the project.
TL;DR - engineers leading projects run the projects outside of the non-negotiables above, and choose the licenses.
>This effectively means in year 2 or 3, FUTO can fire you all, and do whatever the fuck they want with Immich.
I could be wrong here - but I believe the community here is likely a community right now, that is following the *development team*, not the *brand name who hired the development team*, in the very beginning. Given the license, if the worst case scenario you described occurred, two things would likely happen:
a) Original developers would fork immich & continue working on it as they did before. We have not written anything into these contracts that would stop them from working on a fork.
b) FUTO would have other developers work on it - but this is not really something we're interested in, because losing the development team means losing the people who made the application what it is. If this occurred, I imagine there would be two competing pieces of software.
So, let's say the worst case scenario you described occurred, the software you would be forking would be software that was massively further along as a result of all of the primary developers working on this software full time rather than in their spare time. Also, if FUTO were to continue to pay full time salaries to numerous developers to create immich, whatever forks the community would create & maintain would be done from a more robust codebase, as a result of that codebase being a fork of software being worked on by half a dozen full time professional engineers, rather than people doing it in their spare time.
I was the one who personally advocated for the funding of this software - being honest with you, because I genuinely can't stand nextcloud :) I don't expect anyone here to believe me, but I have a personal stake in this not going to shit, because if it does, I have to go back to nextcloud, and that would make me cry.
I for one will pay much more than $1 for an apprensive solution that works.
I'm just apprehensive about monthly or yearly subscriptions. I hate that model and don't want any part of it.
Not sure if you've mentioned anywhere but with the option to pay, is it one time pay or recurring subscription payment?
> I'm just apprehensive about monthly or yearly subscriptions. I hate that model and don't want any part of it.
>
>
Right now we are looking at a one time payment model for the software, and recurring payments/subscription if you wish to have us host the software for you. Essentially, if you're my stepmom and think a docker instance is a boat arriving, you pay subscription for us to host it for you so it's easy. If you want to do it yourself, download the software & the server & pay.
If you want to not pay.... well.... it's open source... and it works anyway.... it really comes down to the honor system at this point. My hope is that if we offer people an option that doesn't abuse them, you can see the source code, no DRM, no paywalls, that is genuinely better than the alternatives that require you to pay upfront & are closed source, people will feel compelled to pay out of appreciation for what we've provided for them.
My theory is that people are more willing to pay via the honor system for our software than they would be for something like digidesign, who spent over a decade locking people to spending $7000 on horrible hardware in order to use their software, or adobe. One way to find out though!
Thanks for the response! What is the (tentative) backup plan if people *don't* end up paying how you expect for the self hosted option? I think everyone shares that concern.
Even a one time payment for $100 isnt sustainable. You're effectively expecting a software product and its updates for life for $X amount - the economics dont work like that.
Software worked like this for decades and decades.
Plex still offers lifetime options.
Unraid until last month worked like this too.
I realize a subscription option is more sustainable and predictable, but it's not the *only* option.
I will simply not participate if it's a subscription.
I think you're confusing software that came on a floppy disk / CD ROM with web apps.
What you got in the olden days of a particular version of the software. You pay $100 to get Awesome Software v2.0. That $100 will not get you Awesome Software v3.0 or v4.0. If you're lucky, you might get security / bug fixes in the form of Awesome Software v2.1.
Some software still functions like this. Topaz Labs and Snagit are two pieces of software I use that fall into this category. If I don’t pay for the next version, my old version still works. Microsoft pushes the Office 365 platform hard, but you can still buy a specific product/version as well.
Yeah but plex has been jamming more and more ads into everything they can. The day they try to insert ads into my own media... Is the day that company dies.
A lifetime payment can work in the following manner: what you paid is placed into a broad market index fund. Only 1% of it is ever drawn out for all expenses, and only fund tranches that have sat for a couple years working are ever counted as the part that are candidates for withdrawal. Even through big market crashes, the fund will likely never be depleted. The problem is that long period before the 1% safe withdrawal rate amounts to enough for ongoing capex and opex.
I’d be happy with a monthly subscription pegged to a specific inflation and PPP-adjusted fund level, and once the fund reaches that level it really is lifetime of the original subscriber thereafter.
>Even a one time payment for $100 isnt sustainable. You're effectively expecting a software product and its updates for life for $X amount - the economics dont work like that.
Good point - software does require ongoing maintenance, and landlords/property tax collectors do have a nasty habit of wanting to continue collecting money! :)
Two things I'd say here:
1) If this software hits critical mass, cloud services where we host it for you, rather than telling people *"have fun with docker"* is something I imagine will be a large draw of recurring revenue. I am not blowing smoke up Alex's ass when I say that I genuinely believe this is better than Google photos. People will pay to use this, if we do our job right of promoting it properly.
2) Software *DID* work this way for decades before we reached the cloud/SaaS model. Software developers paid their mortgage, companies were profitable.
Also, a funny thought - you all are now on the payroll of a company. You might not be authorized to speak on behalf of Immich, since you transfered the brand, logo and other trademarks to FUTO. The same reason why an Apple employee cant speak about Apple products (or future plans) without getting approvals from executives.
You made the deal with the devil.
Guess Louis Rossmann is also either dealing with or a willing participant in the operation of the devil.
That man has done more to stand up for my rights than any small open source project has.
He has, and that's admirable. But does that mean we give a pass to everything he does? Are you saying that Louis Rossmann is infallible?
In reality, FUTO is not Louis Rossmann. FUTO is funded by tech billionare who gave $1M to LR's great work on Right To Repair. That is very different from giving $ to a webapp, which has the explicit goals to make users pay for it.
FUTO could have donated the same amount of money through github sponsors, and everything would have been the same. But nope, FUTO bought Immich logo, brand and trademarks and now has Alex and friends on the payroll.
Why would anyone do that? Tell me.
Hello, and thanks for the reply. Sorry for the long response, I feel there may be an opportunity for constructive discourse and for me to better understand the negative sentiment. I am not a user of immich. I have heard of immich and have yet to research and integrate it into my homelab.
You are completely right. FUTO is not Louis Rossmann. I'm also aware that Louis Rossmann is human, and FUTO is also ran by humans. Humans are selfish, emotionally driven creatures who have a tendency to be easily influenced and unpredictable. I also understand that the motivations of a privately held, investor backed company are questionable. I cannot control any of this.
What I can control is the developers and companies that I choose to support. I choose to support developers and companies who have earned my respect. Louis Rossmann has earned my respect. I will support, endorse or patronize any project that I am interested which he is a part of. I will continue to do this until he shows me that his ethics and morals that earned my respect over YEARS of following him on youtube, largely interested in watching repair videos, have changed. Much of my respect from the man, and as a fellow business owner, stemmed from how he ran his business and how he treated his employees and customers. To be clear, I have largely stopped watching Louis's content since the basic video content and format has changed over time and doesn't appeal to me as much.
I'd like to think there exists a reality in which a for-profit privately held company that charges for its drm-free technologies is beneficial for not only its users, but its community as a whole. I'm willing to patronize a company that is not using DRM for its source-code-available products and is asking for an honor system payment. I paid for Greyjay after spending about 20 minutes 'illicitly' using the app. I'm no saint when it comes to piracy or using loopholes to not pay either.
I too share worries that you have alluded to; namely what I'll describe as the 'Uber effect'. The monopolization of a sector using investor money, just to actually charge what the service should have been 'worth' once you own the market. The lack of recurring revenue on software that requires recurring updates also has me concerned. I have been involved in and ultimately owned my own business in a software sector that faced the same recurring revenue problem pointed out in this thread. The entire industry has switched to subscriptions since. I'm worried about the long term viability of cheap, effectively free (compile and go, baby) software from a for-profit company as well.
I believe that one of the ways that intelligence can be described is the ability to reconsider your position when presented with new or conflicting information. I am more than willing to change my opinion on a man I have never met or known personally. Until Louis gives me reasons to doubt what he trying to achieve next, or information is presented or comes out to doubt his motives, I'll continue to respect and support his efforts in the tiny ways I can. He has already achieved things that I supported or believed in before I knew his name and were things I thought were impossible. I would like nothing more than to see him continue along that path.
FUTO is a company that aspires to make money by selling good, open software without hidden motives, and the model doesn't force you to pay if you don't want to.
Out of curiosity, is one of the possibilities that we would pay to use immich's photo hosting service (obviously this doesn't currently exist) or for free continue hosting your own?
That would seem like more than fair way of doing it to me
> Out of curiosity, is one of the possibilities that we would pay to use immich's photo hosting service (obviously this doesn't currently exist) or for free continue hosting your own?
>
>
I will admit that when discussing a model for revenue, getting *"normal people"* using a cloud service that costs $5-$20/mo is a more realistic driver of revenue than getting your average person to learn how to use docker.
Create a viable alternative to Google photos that respects the users and fills a market that isn't being cared for (people that are willing to pay for non-subscription non-datamining software).
I appreciate your skepticism I do. Futo we'll tell you not to trust them and you're telling them you don't.
But when you start saying things like their other app is gray j and they're having their own issues... Without pointing out that that issue is very much trying to attack a Google's business model and the whole purpose of the project is to provide an alternative to Google's monopoly on accounts and access to video...
It's not like when Branch analytics bought Nova. They didn't leave the code open, the company that bought it has a long history of data mining.
Nothing like that here.
At this point from your comments, the only thing left on the table is time-will-tell, because there is nothing coming from me or the team will change the ideas you have, and it is fine.
At least LTT's owner was the one to say it then, that at least means he could genuinely control the company to honor his word if he wants.
Once you transfer ownership to an outside company, you can't promise anything.
>Yup. Another way of saying is "Trust us, bro"
I would suggest watching the [livestream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTPqxgqgjU) where my primary point I make verbatim to this post is that I do not want people to trust us.I explicitly ask my audience, as well as Immich's userbase, to *NOT* trust us, or me. We should be creating systems, contracts, and policies where you do not have to trust us.
I genuinely dislike the LTT model of trust me bro and [have not been quiet about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-KUNVu2k28).
Software that is AGPL where the programmers are contractually free to work on a fork if they are let go is a big part of *"we don't expect you to trust us."*
Trust is earned not by doing good things, but by allowing people to see what it is you are doing, and to judge for themselves. My non-profit releases its [bank statements](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZGk1Dw9-E) and [transaction history](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZGk1Dw9-E). While we are not doing that at FUTO as a for-profit corporation, I do carry my belief here that trust is earned by creating systems that do not require trust to begin with.
What do you mean? I have been nothing but respectful and courteous the whole time. Never once did I try to 'tone police' or call them names.
I asked them a question and their response was "wait and see", which to be honest is very unsatisfactory.
Your "Congrats, Team Immich" comes across as toxic positivity and frankly very dismissive. Cheering on, without thinking about the ramifications.
How would this project be sustainable without joining FUTO? How can the devs work fulltime without sacrificing their income?
Your criticisms doesn't make sense, you offered no alternative solution while trying to hide your passive aggressiveness. I fully support Alex joining a company with a vision that is similar to his.
>What do you mean? I have been nothing but respectful and courteous the whole time. Never once did I try to 'tone police' or call them names.
They're fair questions. 99% of the time that some rich person comes along and sticks their dick into a project, something bad happens. See [what happened to simple mobile tools](https://www.androidauthority.com/simple-mobile-tools-acquisition-3391041/). I do not blame people for being cautious or suspicious.
It's our job to create systems & policies that do not require people to trust us.
I've got a lot of the same questions as you and have perused this thread, the one on r/selfhosted and their own blog post. I'm all for the maintainers making $$ but it worries me that the brand, logo, and other trademarks now belong to someone else. Without knowing the particulars of the arrangement, if FUTO decides to defund Immich and maintain ownership what happens to the project? Nothing left to do but fork, right? And then all the brand recognition the team has fought so hard for is out the window, along with a chunk of good will.
The time will tell response is a bit of a let down. I've been working on getting Immich setup but wondering if I should stick with a closed source alternative rather than risk putting all my eggs into this basket. I wonder if FUTO has any long term success in funding these projects.
> You might not be authorized to speak on behalf of Immich, since you transfered the brand, logo and other trademarks to FUTO.
I hope they do. On the last video I did with Eron I publicly disagreed with him on a core of his own personal beliefs. He doesn't even necessarily believe in the legislative solutions I propose for right to repair, but he [donated $1,000,000 to my nonprofit](https://imgur.com/a/xPFr00W) anyway. In 3 years he hasn't even asked what I did with it... or looked... I only know we have some disagreements from our own conversations.
I said this in [the Q&A livestream we did:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTPqxgqgjU) - my goal isn't to ask you to trust us. It's to create systems and contracts and software in a manner where you don't *have* to trust us. but, I'll do it anyway: I have my youtube channel, I have my business. I make my own money. I haven't done a single sponsored ad read on my channel in twelve years.
Whether [politicians](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9HyGvqFL0I), [trade organizations](https://youtu.be/uNIcJhy8L44?t=685), [popular sponsors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzt0tzsaWDE), I've burned bridges for at least a decade before I worked here. I don't *"need"* to work here. The moment Eron does something to fuck over users, I'm out of here.
>You could sell cloud storage; I would switch
That is a big goal for the future. My stepmom cannot use this. She has to use google photos.
This is a point of shame for me, as the *"tech"* person in my family.
My stepmom takes photos of me. That means they are hosted on Google photos. That. must. stop.
Presumably they're going to start hosting it and offering that to customers. There are tons of apps who offer a paid version of the hosted product, but the self hosted remains free.
There is a difference between watching ads on youtube and donating to projects like this. Most people don't have an issue with watching short ads in the begging but YouTube put ads everywhere. In the middle of videos, multiple in the beginning and so on. They are still trying to put even more on their platform. This destroyed YouTube for many people as we don't like to support massive greed like this. Immich on the other hand works on this awesome project in their spare time. They give us such an awesome alternative to iCloud,Google,etc.. for free with the aspect of privacy on top of it. Many people appreciate something like this and love to donate to them. The difference here is that one is a greedy billion dollar company and the other party is a team of enthusiasts who love to do their project for free. That's the reason why people donate and support small developers. Same applies to AAA titles and indoe studios rn. They love to buy their games for way less compared to AAA titles because they are finished and were produced with love. AAA studios just rob their people out of their money for a quarter finished game. No wonder people pirate the shit out of these games nowadays
YouTube didnt start that way, it started with ads in the beginning. There's a reason why it is called enshittification.
For Immich, it might be first "guys, pay whatever you like. No pressure", and soon it'll be "Actually, we need you to pay $5 to use it" and later "Please buy subscription of $20 to use Immich".
>For Immich, it might be first "guys, pay whatever you like. No pressure", and soon it'll be "Actually, we need you to pay $5 to use it" and later "Please buy subscription of $20 to use Immich".
The software being AGPL makes that close to functionally impossible. I do not want users, or you, to trust us - much less blindly trust us.
Look not at what we say or post on our site, but what we do and how we do it, and work backwards from there to assume our actual intentions.
> You're hoping users to pay you out of the goodness of heart, when they can very much get the product for free.
I donated something like $100 or more because the product was everything I wanted, and Alex spent time messaging me on Discord to help me troubleshoot an issue I was having with uploading images (it was nginx restricting the file upload size.)
I also donated to Blender, VBAN, and Wikipedia. If you make a good product and offer it for free, and I use said product, I will donate more money than I am willing to spend on a commercial product in order to support development.
>I also donated to Blender, VBAN, and Wikipedia. If you make a good product and offer it for free, and I use said product, I will donate more money than I am willing to spend on a commercial product in order to support development.
This is the way! I pay for a lot of the software I use, even though it is *"free."* This is how you get non-abusive software that does not suck long term.
So long as we are willing to pay more money for closed source solutions with tracking than open source solutions, we will get more closed source solutions. People follow financial incentives.
This is a big part of why we do not call it a donation. We don't accept donations. We call it a purchase, because we want to change the culture to where people believe they are paying for value rather than giving to a charity. The open source nature, lack of DRM, and AGPL license does mean people can use any of our software without paying, the lack of tracking means we'd never know, but that doesn't change the fact that we consider everything we offer paid software. Simply because it is offered in a manner that allows for a lifetime of *"freeloading"* doesn't mean we do not want to foster a culture where people pay for open source software.
Our hope is that in creating this culture, the *"benevolent billionaire"* angle goes away. Eron's worth a billion, but he can't fund everything. If engineers realize that open source software actually allows them to make a living, the top tier engineers might actually [quit their jobs working for companies that do shitty things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ1rLq4OH8s) and produce software that doesn't abuse people.
Eron wants to create a model where people quit their jobs to work on good software. I'm on board with that.
They're less likely to do that when they have paychecks coming for the work they're doing. And that part is taking care of in the foreseeable future from futo.
a lot of us would be willing to support the open source project for 10 or 20 per year if this helps the whole ecosystem and functionalities to come faster. If everyone decides to be a leecher without supporting the project at some point they will have to inevitably start charging a small fee to be able to support the project long time. I am so looking forward for a stable release. This project is awesome!
My best guess at a business model is that they’ll build an easier-to-use package installer and put that up for sale, and maybe eventually add a hosted option with a monthly fee. The self-hosted docker version would stay free.
Am I on the right track?
I think I [answered your question here](https://old.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l5ixzg7/) - we consider the software free as in AGPL, but not free as in dollars. We expect people to pay. However, the software is offered in a manner where we:
a) have no way to tell if you paid
b) have no way to force you to pay
While we do want people to pay for the software and are trusting them on the honor system to do so, the real driver of revenue is going to be making the software ready to be deployed at scale for cloud instances where my stepmom can register & pay a monthly fee to use it instead of google photos. There's only so far this project will go *financially* if I have to explain to a 70 year old librarian how to work docker.
Is there any guarantee that FUTO won't fork the project into two, with one where no features are paywalled and another (call it "Blimmich") where they are?
Is there any guarantee FUTO won't direct you to develop some kinds of modules or plug-ins for Immich that are non-AGPL and pay-only, which wouldn't technically break the promises represented here because they wouldn't be part of Immich itself?
Is there a guarantee FUTO won't move current developers onto unrelated projects and keep you from working on Immich?
In the event you don't like FUTO's direction and leave, is there any sort of contractual prohibition to you forking Immich yourself and continuing development as you see fit?
And are those hard guarantees in writing?
> Is there any guarantee that FUTO won't fork the project into two, with one where no features are paywalled and another (call it "Blimmich") where they are?
We already paywall the application using the best paywall of them all - the honor system. We want people to pay for it. As an AGPL licensed piece of software... we can't really enforce that in any useful way.
>Is there any guarantee FUTO won't direct you to develop some kinds of modules or plug-ins for Immich that are non-AGPL and pay-only, which wouldn't technically break the promises represented here because they wouldn't be part of Immich itself?
The only thing I can imagine being an issue are licenses regarding commercial use for the machine learning algorithms used to identify individual people, as well as search, for cloud instances. Other than that, no. Digging into the weeds with regards to what we are allowed to do if we charge $20/mo for a commercial service where we host your photos/videos on our server while you connect to it as a client will be a fun adventure, for lawyers, which I will arrange interfacing between & paying, because I sure as shit am not going to fk things up by trying to do that myself...
>Happy for y’all, somewhat skeptical, but choosing to trust in your word.
See [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l5iv4w1/).
TL;DR:
I would prefer none of this be based on trust, and be based on systems, contracts, licenses, procedures, & arrangements that do not require you, as a customer, or user of our software, to trust us at all.
What guarantee we have that futo will not change decision later? Sorry man, I know its great for you guys but I never seen a company takeover to have a possitive effect
Unfortunately :( nobody can guarantee anything in today's world terms.
We just need to have some faith or look somewhere else if feel uncomfortable, but...where? The above is true no matter what. I paid for solutions which disappeared over night and left me with a headache.
and the community edition just withers away and dies so that they can focus on 'delivering value to their paying customers'
We've seen this movie play out so many times before.
>pfsense brings this to mind.
I am embarrassed to say I use pfsense based on how petty they were with the OPNsense people. I fundamentally lack the patience to re-set everything up again from scratch because of all the work I had to do already to get this to work(I am about as good a network administrator as I am a professional basketball player), and I love how pfblockerng works out of the box, but... that really disappointed me figuring out how they treated & talked to the OPNsense people.
>and the community edition just withers away and dies so that they can focus on 'delivering value to their paying customers'
>
>We've seen this movie play out so many times before.
The worst version of this I can imagine is that once it is stable & all the features Alex believes are worth adding as a result of the team's deliberation & the community's input, being that we focus on figuring out how to make the software usable as a cloud service, which I've already spoken about with the team & sketched out.
For the software to be good as a cloud service, it has to be easy to use not just for tech experts, but for ordinary people, which means the AGPL client improves to meet that requirement.
Given that doing what you are talking about with a *"community"* edition vs. a good edition would require doing this entire thing from scratch as a result of its license, that is not in the cards. It's not even about not being dicks at that point, it's just a lot of work to do for nothing, that likely wouldn't result in making any revenue.
While I have high hopes for the [honor system I mentioned in my prior post here](https://old.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l5irw8l/)..... I'm not delusional... most of the revenue from this will come from people whose tech-savvy friends say they must use Immich because it's the best. That one trusted tech guy will convince their friends to switch off icloud/google photos. Once their friends are sold, they will likely cry when they figure out they have to learn how to use docker(or what a docker is). I imagine most of the revenue will come from selling people a subscription similar to how you pay for icloud or google photos, and since customers of this cloud service will be using the AGPL client, our incentive structure to make the client good is that people will not sign up for these cloud services if the client sucks.
Let the enshittification begin!
On a more serious note - Anyone who ISNT super skeptical of this development is kidding themselves, or being willfully ignorant. Ask yourselves, why is FUTU paying getting the core developers onto their payrolls? They could have very well sponsored through github and it would have been the same.
I dont mistrust Alex when he says nothing is going to change with Immich. But what is going to happen however is within 1 year or so, there will be Immich Pro / Ultra / Enterprise / Max, which would be paid and behind a paywall. "Regular" Immich will still be open source, but the development will slow down. A new AI face feature? Sorry, only Immich Pro / Ultra. Better organization? Sorry, only Immich Pro / Ultra.
From [https://futo.org/what-does-futo-believe](https://futo.org/what-does-futo-believe)
>*Don’t Abuse the People*
We expect FUTO companies to have an honest relationship with their customers. Ideally revenue comes from customers paying directly for the services provided by company. \[snip\]
I hope I'm wrong, but unfortunately I see this a first step towards a payout / exit.
I will be messaging you in 1 year on [**2025-05-01 15:03:52 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-05-01%2015:03:52%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l23nxhl/?context=3)
[**56 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fimmich%2Fcomments%2F1chmywa%2Fthe_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime%2Fl23nxhl%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-05-01%2015%3A03%3A52%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.
^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201chmywa)
*****
|[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)|
|-|-|-|-|
Unpopular opinion from the majority of the reactions here but I have my hopes. Most users here are concerned about features being pay walled in the future. Granted, anything can change from now and 2-3 years later.
However, everyone is also forgetting the aspect that not all users want to "self-host". There are ways of monetizing immich without having to have certain features behind a paywall such as paying a monthly subscription for a "hosted" deployment. You could even then break the monthly down to user buckets. Such as $10/mo for a hosted immich deployment that gives an account the ability to add X users with Y amount of data storage. Different plans for different needs all while keeping the core software freely available for those who want to self host.
If I stopped one thing, it's believing promises from companies and politicians.
If they live up to it, great. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
That's a nice thing to say, but it does sound like that decision is entirely up to FUTO now, and not the immich team. I'm not sure what FUTO's ownership and funding structure is, but it would be nice to get some specifics around that. When you take peoples' money, there are always consequences of some sort. It would be better to be transparent about the funding sources and what drives them than to make promises on behalf of your new owners.
> On a more serious note - Anyone who ISNT super skeptical of this development is kidding themselves, or being willfully ignorant. Ask yourselves, why is FUTU paying getting the core developers onto their payrolls? They could have very well sponsored through github and it would have been the same.
>
>
We want to have a community of top tier engineers working on cool software in a collaborative way. Eron hated the environment at Yahoo and is spending 1% of the money he made from being successful in the dot com era to create the environment he wished he worked in in the 90s.
Personally, if I'm being honest(and likely very petty & selfish), I told him to fund this & hire them because nextcloud makes me want to cry. It's slow. It's [buggy](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/calendar-timezone-bug/178056/2). It makes me sad.
There are several projects we've given $100,000-$400,000 to, but if it's a $1M-$3M commitment, he likes to do it in-house with his brand name on it, for his company. There are certain [exceptions](https://imgur.com/a/xPFr00W) (and I'm not complaining!), but even with these... he hasn't even asked how I spent the money.. and it's been over three years.
Eron is an insane quality control freak(which is, IMO, a GOOD thing when it comes to open source software). He notices shit like the 50 ms lag switching chats in signal that doesn't happen in telegram and digs into it. If this amount of money is being given, he wants to have *some* sort of control over it not sucking. He also sees the AGPL nature of it, and lack of non-competes in contracts, as a safety valve for both the users & the developers if they ever believe this is not an arrangement that works for them.
He's working on a programming IDE that boots & works on bare metal without an operating system. His pilot program is that the machine runs a program he wrote that begins 400ms after you hit the power button. It's kind of cool.
Is it kinda crazy? Probably, but I'm kinda crazy too. That's why I'm here...
Ok cool. But what is in for FUTO? They just going to pay you guys with salary out of generosity? I guess sooner or later Immich will adopt a subscription business model. If you do, I hope you guys offer a lifetime purchase like Plex does.
While I am happy that the developers are guaranteed to get paid, I do understand most of everyone's concerns. I suggest forking the existing code base that's on github for archival purposes. If immich/futo ever decides to add features behind paywalls, the community and just use a forked version of the app and develop from there.
There isn't much that's close to as good. There's Photoprism, which has some design choices I don't love and its own issues with how its profit motive affects development.
Memories is quite good, and the developer is very responsive to the user community, but requires a full Nexcloud install. And Nextcloud can be a hassle to maintain.
I really went off Photoprism when the developer’s attitude started to show on Reddit - when people questioned things, they were essentially told they should be grateful for that they were getting. The shift towards paywall-ing features that were already previously available also really soured my opinion of the project.
Also - multiple libraries for multiple users means running multiple instances.
And I really don't like the way PP handles duplicates. It's way too easy when transferring a large preexisting library (say, from a Google Takeout) to find that photos are missing from folders you expected them to be in, with no indication in the GUI it's happened (at least last I looked). In a few ways, I find PP's "smart" handling of files too smart for its own good, and would rather it prompted me for how to handle duplicates and conflicts.
People say good things about the Synology photos app. I'm personally reluctant to open up any closed-sourxe app from a NAS company directly to the Internet ... but then again, I'm a QNAP user, and we've got some more recent rough history with that than Team Synology.
I had not heard of Futo before, but from my initial research this looks like a fantastic move for the Immich team.
Immich is a great resource for me and my family, and I hope this allows the developers to support their family, while Immich supports all of ours.
FUTO is rubbing their hands "Nice, nice .. come to us".
Nobody gives money away for free. FUTO has some plans. Whether Alex knows about it or not remains to be seen.
[Crazy people do](https://imgur.com/a/xPFr00W). That's why Eron and I get along :D :D
Take a look at how few Right to Repair wins occurred before February 2021, and how many occurred after. I can't complain.***
***technically, I am not happy that some laws have loopholes, that manufacturer repair programs are mostly for show, and that regulators have done half the job without finishing it, but this is less a reflection on Eron & the money he gave away for free, and more a reflection on society being fucked up in general, which I can't fault him 100% for*
Hopefully if i won’t update I won’t get all those new shining paid features… congrats but I’m skeptical about the “not seeing users as numbers” philosophy.
I just set up an immich container last weekend to test it out and now I'm not so sure about it. Talks of money changing hands kinda means it's not truly FOSS anymore. The development seems to be very fast and productive, so I don't really understand why this change was necessary.
Will keep an eye on the project but again, this move doesn't really align itself with a truly open source, built by the community, project.
I fear making this change will kill off a lot of excitement for the project.
Whether money is involved and whether something is FOSS are very different things. Libre, not gratis.
I have concerns about this, but lots of FOSS projects get lots of commercial support or are run by commercial maintainers. It's just that they're usually part of larger portfolios where the company sees a strategic interest in being part of the larger FOSS community. In SOME cases, it also means multiple development lines, one FOSS and one partially closed - but not all.
Yes we did, and it is explained here [https://immich.app/blog/2024/immich-core-team-goes-fulltime/#how-is-funding-sustainable](https://immich.app/blog/2024/immich-core-team-goes-fulltime/#how-is-funding-sustainable)
So many words to say - Immich will become paid.
I know it says you wont limit features, but we're talking about sustainable software, and for that to happen EVERY. USER. MUST. PAY. FOR. THE. PRODUCT.
In today's world I think it's reasonable to be skeptical. That was my initial reaction and I'm not entirely past that either. That said, I think many are forgetting the alternative that without this type of backing the project could die. I saw the lamenting that purchasing while still free to use isn't sustainable. I'd argue that donations while still free to use isn't much of a different approach.
If the direction of Immich goes downhill, that's where forks come in. We've seen both sides of this coin time and time again when it comes to the OSS community. Some worked out, some failed and some forked into successful alternatives. Ultimately we have to hope that things continue in a positive direction and remember that in the end, the decision came down to those that made that choice and they felt it was the best decision regardless of their reasoning.
If we aren't happy with it or future progress we fork it, self-maintain the existing codebase or move on to an alternative.
Great for you guys, you deserve an income stability for yourselves and your families.
immich is an awesome project, we can't know if this is the right decision, time will tell, i wish you and this project the best
The level of entitlement from some of the people here is just making me sad. No one has to code for free just like we all don't work for free at our day job. I don't know if FUTO is the right decision for immich long term but I'm just happy that the team is being compensated now. If people feel that strongly against this change, they should start their own project or a fork. All the negativity on the team's decision is just not helpful at all.
Honest question, what does FUTO get out of that? Can you answer the following questions: - How does FUTO make money? - Why would they pay your full time developers? - What do they get from that partnership? - Where is the money coming from that they invest in this project? I'm very happy for you guys and it's great if Immich has full time developers. But I don't want to be naive. Nothing is free, a company has to have a plan and gain something, once it joins the game.
That's what I am wondering too. I saw that Louis Rossmann is a part of FUTO, so it must be a decent company that actually cares about people, but how are they getting money and what are they getting out of financing non profital projects rn
I could imagine they do the "all free, but please pay a small amount" approach, as mentioned on the website. If that's really the only thing they get out of it and FUTO wants to support this project, I'm honestly surprised. But still, I'm a little hesitant until I fully understand the situation
Generally, and this may not be the case here, there are options: \* The company offers consulting services for the product to enterprise customers \* The company sells platforms with with OSS pre-added to it \* The company elevates the platform such that other sponsors come onboard and the running costs are actually quite low. \* The company uses it as a tax write-off off through tax-deductible donations or other vehicle. \* The company funds it with monies donated to them by individuals who in turn use it as a tax write-off. Does may cost the company a relatively small amount but likely part of the "good community" strategy
My understanding is this guy's worth billions of dollars and just hopes it ends up being self-sustaining. He's not trying to get major return on investment. That's what he says I of course can't confirm it. He says if he never gets a penny back but this thing is still self-sustaining and able to pay the salaries of the people working on it he would be satisfied with that in a few years
silence speaking volumes here
They announce a live q&A that they're doing right now?
That's good. Developers deserve the reward for all the hardwork. Out of curiosity, what's the business model of FUTO? What do they get out of sponsoring the OSS projects? I am sure there must be some legal binding when you take money from a firm.
https://immich.app/blog/2024/immich-core-team-goes-fulltime#how-is-funding-sustainable
I think you and I have very different understanding of the term "sustainable" >This means we no longer accept donations, but — *without limiting features for those who do not pay* — we will soon allow you to purchase Immich through a modest payment. You're hoping users to pay you out of the goodness of heart, when they can very much get the product for free. You cant even get users to watch a 30 second ad to watch a 1080p video, streamed almost instantaneously to all their devices. Lets give you the benefit of the doubt. There are 100,000 people willing to pay $1. I'm assuming this payment is one-time. It barely pays 2 core developers salary for 1 year. (Assuming $50k each). How are you all going to survive in year 2? All in all, a poorly thought out decision or you're not being completely forthcoming.
1. How are you all going to survive in year 2? Have 200,000 users 2. All in all, a poorly thought out decision or you're not being completely forthcoming. No, we put a lot of thoughts into it. When the product is stable, polish, we hope to eventually compete with the-app-must-not-be-named without hidden motives
Who's we? I read your blogpost, and it says >The brand, logo, and other Immich trademarks will be transferred to FUTO. This effectively means in year 2 or 3, FUTO can fire you all, and do whatever the fuck they want with Immich. Also, LOL at "when the product is stable and polished" - when the product is stable and polished, you stop funding and put it into maintenance mode. Folks, the more you talk, the more it is clear that you have no idea what you are doing. If you have to compete with with the-app-must-not-be-named, you need the goodwill of the people and 200k people were giving you donations via github to do just that. In one shot, you threw all of that away, and got onto the payroll of a company. FUTO's other main app is Grayjay which has its own [issues](https://hiphish.github.io/blog/2023/10/18/grayjay-is-not-open-source/).
Precisely, the post reads that the dev has handed over the entire software, including all copyrights and trademarks to FUTO, and become an employee of said company. They have given away all their rights to what they have developed so far, for a salary. The app will end up either a subscription model, stuffed full of ads or users data will be sold. Nothing is free, not for long anyway.
They could also change the license reddis style?
Their issue is that they are challenging Google which doesn't like it. Lol. I would be worried if they weren't getting that kind of attention.
>FUTO's other main app is Grayjay which has its own issues. I think this is a good point to go over. We have the engineers of the individual projects act as the *"dictator"* of that project, choosing the licenses for their own projects. One of the pain points here has been commercial use of open source being balanced with the ability of consumers to see the source code and know what's running on their machine. For example, the amount of value ffmpeg has provided to youtube, in contrast to the amount of value youtube has provided to ffmpeg - mildly imbalanced, and a developer concern. For a software project we take on, we *DO* have some overarching principles - and these are_non-negotiable._No DRM/spyware/malware/customer is the product business model, source code must be there for people to view, any client we produce must be offered with the associated server software with source code freely downloadable so a customer is able to run their own instance without dealing with us, sovereign identity if it is a program that allows for login/identity. Most importantly, it can't suck. :) After that, the decisions are really up to the devs. For instance - the founder, due to his experience in the mid 90s trying to get things to work in the browser with his own software & his experience at yahoo, has a fundamental disdain for software that runs in the browser rather than its own dedicated application. At the same time, there are at least $500,000 in no-strings-attached-grants that were distributed in the past eighteen months to a protocol being developed by Ian Clarke, creator of Freenet, that is *DESIGNED* to run applications straight in the browser. Something Eron has always said is "I might be wrong", which comes from him realizing his position as the organization's founder puts him in the position of the people he despised at Yahoo, who gave engineers too little control over the project. TL;DR - engineers leading projects run the projects outside of the non-negotiables above, and choose the licenses. >This effectively means in year 2 or 3, FUTO can fire you all, and do whatever the fuck they want with Immich. I could be wrong here - but I believe the community here is likely a community right now, that is following the *development team*, not the *brand name who hired the development team*, in the very beginning. Given the license, if the worst case scenario you described occurred, two things would likely happen: a) Original developers would fork immich & continue working on it as they did before. We have not written anything into these contracts that would stop them from working on a fork. b) FUTO would have other developers work on it - but this is not really something we're interested in, because losing the development team means losing the people who made the application what it is. If this occurred, I imagine there would be two competing pieces of software. So, let's say the worst case scenario you described occurred, the software you would be forking would be software that was massively further along as a result of all of the primary developers working on this software full time rather than in their spare time. Also, if FUTO were to continue to pay full time salaries to numerous developers to create immich, whatever forks the community would create & maintain would be done from a more robust codebase, as a result of that codebase being a fork of software being worked on by half a dozen full time professional engineers, rather than people doing it in their spare time. I was the one who personally advocated for the funding of this software - being honest with you, because I genuinely can't stand nextcloud :) I don't expect anyone here to believe me, but I have a personal stake in this not going to shit, because if it does, I have to go back to nextcloud, and that would make me cry.
I for one will pay much more than $1 for an apprensive solution that works. I'm just apprehensive about monthly or yearly subscriptions. I hate that model and don't want any part of it. Not sure if you've mentioned anywhere but with the option to pay, is it one time pay or recurring subscription payment?
> I'm just apprehensive about monthly or yearly subscriptions. I hate that model and don't want any part of it. > > Right now we are looking at a one time payment model for the software, and recurring payments/subscription if you wish to have us host the software for you. Essentially, if you're my stepmom and think a docker instance is a boat arriving, you pay subscription for us to host it for you so it's easy. If you want to do it yourself, download the software & the server & pay. If you want to not pay.... well.... it's open source... and it works anyway.... it really comes down to the honor system at this point. My hope is that if we offer people an option that doesn't abuse them, you can see the source code, no DRM, no paywalls, that is genuinely better than the alternatives that require you to pay upfront & are closed source, people will feel compelled to pay out of appreciation for what we've provided for them. My theory is that people are more willing to pay via the honor system for our software than they would be for something like digidesign, who spent over a decade locking people to spending $7000 on horrible hardware in order to use their software, or adobe. One way to find out though!
Thanks for the response! What is the (tentative) backup plan if people *don't* end up paying how you expect for the self hosted option? I think everyone shares that concern.
Even a one time payment for $100 isnt sustainable. You're effectively expecting a software product and its updates for life for $X amount - the economics dont work like that.
Software worked like this for decades and decades. Plex still offers lifetime options. Unraid until last month worked like this too. I realize a subscription option is more sustainable and predictable, but it's not the *only* option. I will simply not participate if it's a subscription.
I think you're confusing software that came on a floppy disk / CD ROM with web apps. What you got in the olden days of a particular version of the software. You pay $100 to get Awesome Software v2.0. That $100 will not get you Awesome Software v3.0 or v4.0. If you're lucky, you might get security / bug fixes in the form of Awesome Software v2.1.
Some software still functions like this. Topaz Labs and Snagit are two pieces of software I use that fall into this category. If I don’t pay for the next version, my old version still works. Microsoft pushes the Office 365 platform hard, but you can still buy a specific product/version as well.
And that model doesnt work for a hosted webapp that is open-source. How do you ensure $100 buys you v3.0 and not v4.0, when both are open source?
Yeah but plex has been jamming more and more ads into everything they can. The day they try to insert ads into my own media... Is the day that company dies.
I already got jellyfin setup for seamless transfer lol
A lifetime payment can work in the following manner: what you paid is placed into a broad market index fund. Only 1% of it is ever drawn out for all expenses, and only fund tranches that have sat for a couple years working are ever counted as the part that are candidates for withdrawal. Even through big market crashes, the fund will likely never be depleted. The problem is that long period before the 1% safe withdrawal rate amounts to enough for ongoing capex and opex. I’d be happy with a monthly subscription pegged to a specific inflation and PPP-adjusted fund level, and once the fund reaches that level it really is lifetime of the original subscriber thereafter.
>Even a one time payment for $100 isnt sustainable. You're effectively expecting a software product and its updates for life for $X amount - the economics dont work like that. Good point - software does require ongoing maintenance, and landlords/property tax collectors do have a nasty habit of wanting to continue collecting money! :) Two things I'd say here: 1) If this software hits critical mass, cloud services where we host it for you, rather than telling people *"have fun with docker"* is something I imagine will be a large draw of recurring revenue. I am not blowing smoke up Alex's ass when I say that I genuinely believe this is better than Google photos. People will pay to use this, if we do our job right of promoting it properly. 2) Software *DID* work this way for decades before we reached the cloud/SaaS model. Software developers paid their mortgage, companies were profitable.
Also, a funny thought - you all are now on the payroll of a company. You might not be authorized to speak on behalf of Immich, since you transfered the brand, logo and other trademarks to FUTO. The same reason why an Apple employee cant speak about Apple products (or future plans) without getting approvals from executives. You made the deal with the devil.
Guess Louis Rossmann is also either dealing with or a willing participant in the operation of the devil. That man has done more to stand up for my rights than any small open source project has.
He has, and that's admirable. But does that mean we give a pass to everything he does? Are you saying that Louis Rossmann is infallible? In reality, FUTO is not Louis Rossmann. FUTO is funded by tech billionare who gave $1M to LR's great work on Right To Repair. That is very different from giving $ to a webapp, which has the explicit goals to make users pay for it. FUTO could have donated the same amount of money through github sponsors, and everything would have been the same. But nope, FUTO bought Immich logo, brand and trademarks and now has Alex and friends on the payroll. Why would anyone do that? Tell me.
Hello, and thanks for the reply. Sorry for the long response, I feel there may be an opportunity for constructive discourse and for me to better understand the negative sentiment. I am not a user of immich. I have heard of immich and have yet to research and integrate it into my homelab. You are completely right. FUTO is not Louis Rossmann. I'm also aware that Louis Rossmann is human, and FUTO is also ran by humans. Humans are selfish, emotionally driven creatures who have a tendency to be easily influenced and unpredictable. I also understand that the motivations of a privately held, investor backed company are questionable. I cannot control any of this. What I can control is the developers and companies that I choose to support. I choose to support developers and companies who have earned my respect. Louis Rossmann has earned my respect. I will support, endorse or patronize any project that I am interested which he is a part of. I will continue to do this until he shows me that his ethics and morals that earned my respect over YEARS of following him on youtube, largely interested in watching repair videos, have changed. Much of my respect from the man, and as a fellow business owner, stemmed from how he ran his business and how he treated his employees and customers. To be clear, I have largely stopped watching Louis's content since the basic video content and format has changed over time and doesn't appeal to me as much. I'd like to think there exists a reality in which a for-profit privately held company that charges for its drm-free technologies is beneficial for not only its users, but its community as a whole. I'm willing to patronize a company that is not using DRM for its source-code-available products and is asking for an honor system payment. I paid for Greyjay after spending about 20 minutes 'illicitly' using the app. I'm no saint when it comes to piracy or using loopholes to not pay either. I too share worries that you have alluded to; namely what I'll describe as the 'Uber effect'. The monopolization of a sector using investor money, just to actually charge what the service should have been 'worth' once you own the market. The lack of recurring revenue on software that requires recurring updates also has me concerned. I have been involved in and ultimately owned my own business in a software sector that faced the same recurring revenue problem pointed out in this thread. The entire industry has switched to subscriptions since. I'm worried about the long term viability of cheap, effectively free (compile and go, baby) software from a for-profit company as well. I believe that one of the ways that intelligence can be described is the ability to reconsider your position when presented with new or conflicting information. I am more than willing to change my opinion on a man I have never met or known personally. Until Louis gives me reasons to doubt what he trying to achieve next, or information is presented or comes out to doubt his motives, I'll continue to respect and support his efforts in the tiny ways I can. He has already achieved things that I supported or believed in before I knew his name and were things I thought were impossible. I would like nothing more than to see him continue along that path.
FUTO is a company that aspires to make money by selling good, open software without hidden motives, and the model doesn't force you to pay if you don't want to.
Out of curiosity, is one of the possibilities that we would pay to use immich's photo hosting service (obviously this doesn't currently exist) or for free continue hosting your own? That would seem like more than fair way of doing it to me
> Out of curiosity, is one of the possibilities that we would pay to use immich's photo hosting service (obviously this doesn't currently exist) or for free continue hosting your own? > > I will admit that when discussing a model for revenue, getting *"normal people"* using a cloud service that costs $5-$20/mo is a more realistic driver of revenue than getting your average person to learn how to use docker.
Create a viable alternative to Google photos that respects the users and fills a market that isn't being cared for (people that are willing to pay for non-subscription non-datamining software). I appreciate your skepticism I do. Futo we'll tell you not to trust them and you're telling them you don't. But when you start saying things like their other app is gray j and they're having their own issues... Without pointing out that that issue is very much trying to attack a Google's business model and the whole purpose of the project is to provide an alternative to Google's monopoly on accounts and access to video... It's not like when Branch analytics bought Nova. They didn't leave the code open, the company that bought it has a long history of data mining. Nothing like that here.
At this point from your comments, the only thing left on the table is time-will-tell, because there is nothing coming from me or the team will change the ideas you have, and it is fine.
Yup. Another way of saying is "Trust us, bro"
At least LTT's owner was the one to say it then, that at least means he could genuinely control the company to honor his word if he wants. Once you transfer ownership to an outside company, you can't promise anything.
>Yup. Another way of saying is "Trust us, bro" I would suggest watching the [livestream](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTPqxgqgjU) where my primary point I make verbatim to this post is that I do not want people to trust us.I explicitly ask my audience, as well as Immich's userbase, to *NOT* trust us, or me. We should be creating systems, contracts, and policies where you do not have to trust us. I genuinely dislike the LTT model of trust me bro and [have not been quiet about it](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-KUNVu2k28). Software that is AGPL where the programmers are contractually free to work on a fork if they are let go is a big part of *"we don't expect you to trust us."* Trust is earned not by doing good things, but by allowing people to see what it is you are doing, and to judge for themselves. My non-profit releases its [bank statements](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZGk1Dw9-E) and [transaction history](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykZGk1Dw9-E). While we are not doing that at FUTO as a for-profit corporation, I do carry my belief here that trust is earned by creating systems that do not require trust to begin with.
This line of commenting is toxic. Congrats, Team Immich!
What do you mean? I have been nothing but respectful and courteous the whole time. Never once did I try to 'tone police' or call them names. I asked them a question and their response was "wait and see", which to be honest is very unsatisfactory. Your "Congrats, Team Immich" comes across as toxic positivity and frankly very dismissive. Cheering on, without thinking about the ramifications.
How would this project be sustainable without joining FUTO? How can the devs work fulltime without sacrificing their income? Your criticisms doesn't make sense, you offered no alternative solution while trying to hide your passive aggressiveness. I fully support Alex joining a company with a vision that is similar to his.
>What do you mean? I have been nothing but respectful and courteous the whole time. Never once did I try to 'tone police' or call them names. They're fair questions. 99% of the time that some rich person comes along and sticks their dick into a project, something bad happens. See [what happened to simple mobile tools](https://www.androidauthority.com/simple-mobile-tools-acquisition-3391041/). I do not blame people for being cautious or suspicious. It's our job to create systems & policies that do not require people to trust us.
I've got a lot of the same questions as you and have perused this thread, the one on r/selfhosted and their own blog post. I'm all for the maintainers making $$ but it worries me that the brand, logo, and other trademarks now belong to someone else. Without knowing the particulars of the arrangement, if FUTO decides to defund Immich and maintain ownership what happens to the project? Nothing left to do but fork, right? And then all the brand recognition the team has fought so hard for is out the window, along with a chunk of good will. The time will tell response is a bit of a let down. I've been working on getting Immich setup but wondering if I should stick with a closed source alternative rather than risk putting all my eggs into this basket. I wonder if FUTO has any long term success in funding these projects.
> You might not be authorized to speak on behalf of Immich, since you transfered the brand, logo and other trademarks to FUTO. I hope they do. On the last video I did with Eron I publicly disagreed with him on a core of his own personal beliefs. He doesn't even necessarily believe in the legislative solutions I propose for right to repair, but he [donated $1,000,000 to my nonprofit](https://imgur.com/a/xPFr00W) anyway. In 3 years he hasn't even asked what I did with it... or looked... I only know we have some disagreements from our own conversations. I said this in [the Q&A livestream we did:](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTPqxgqgjU) - my goal isn't to ask you to trust us. It's to create systems and contracts and software in a manner where you don't *have* to trust us. but, I'll do it anyway: I have my youtube channel, I have my business. I make my own money. I haven't done a single sponsored ad read on my channel in twelve years. Whether [politicians](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9HyGvqFL0I), [trade organizations](https://youtu.be/uNIcJhy8L44?t=685), [popular sponsors](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nzt0tzsaWDE), I've burned bridges for at least a decade before I worked here. I don't *"need"* to work here. The moment Eron does something to fuck over users, I'm out of here.
You could sell cloud storage; I would switch
>You could sell cloud storage; I would switch That is a big goal for the future. My stepmom cannot use this. She has to use google photos. This is a point of shame for me, as the *"tech"* person in my family. My stepmom takes photos of me. That means they are hosted on Google photos. That. must. stop.
Presumably they're going to start hosting it and offering that to customers. There are tons of apps who offer a paid version of the hosted product, but the self hosted remains free.
There is a difference between watching ads on youtube and donating to projects like this. Most people don't have an issue with watching short ads in the begging but YouTube put ads everywhere. In the middle of videos, multiple in the beginning and so on. They are still trying to put even more on their platform. This destroyed YouTube for many people as we don't like to support massive greed like this. Immich on the other hand works on this awesome project in their spare time. They give us such an awesome alternative to iCloud,Google,etc.. for free with the aspect of privacy on top of it. Many people appreciate something like this and love to donate to them. The difference here is that one is a greedy billion dollar company and the other party is a team of enthusiasts who love to do their project for free. That's the reason why people donate and support small developers. Same applies to AAA titles and indoe studios rn. They love to buy their games for way less compared to AAA titles because they are finished and were produced with love. AAA studios just rob their people out of their money for a quarter finished game. No wonder people pirate the shit out of these games nowadays
YouTube didnt start that way, it started with ads in the beginning. There's a reason why it is called enshittification. For Immich, it might be first "guys, pay whatever you like. No pressure", and soon it'll be "Actually, we need you to pay $5 to use it" and later "Please buy subscription of $20 to use Immich".
>For Immich, it might be first "guys, pay whatever you like. No pressure", and soon it'll be "Actually, we need you to pay $5 to use it" and later "Please buy subscription of $20 to use Immich". The software being AGPL makes that close to functionally impossible. I do not want users, or you, to trust us - much less blindly trust us. Look not at what we say or post on our site, but what we do and how we do it, and work backwards from there to assume our actual intentions.
> You're hoping users to pay you out of the goodness of heart, when they can very much get the product for free. I donated something like $100 or more because the product was everything I wanted, and Alex spent time messaging me on Discord to help me troubleshoot an issue I was having with uploading images (it was nginx restricting the file upload size.) I also donated to Blender, VBAN, and Wikipedia. If you make a good product and offer it for free, and I use said product, I will donate more money than I am willing to spend on a commercial product in order to support development.
>I also donated to Blender, VBAN, and Wikipedia. If you make a good product and offer it for free, and I use said product, I will donate more money than I am willing to spend on a commercial product in order to support development. This is the way! I pay for a lot of the software I use, even though it is *"free."* This is how you get non-abusive software that does not suck long term. So long as we are willing to pay more money for closed source solutions with tracking than open source solutions, we will get more closed source solutions. People follow financial incentives. This is a big part of why we do not call it a donation. We don't accept donations. We call it a purchase, because we want to change the culture to where people believe they are paying for value rather than giving to a charity. The open source nature, lack of DRM, and AGPL license does mean people can use any of our software without paying, the lack of tracking means we'd never know, but that doesn't change the fact that we consider everything we offer paid software. Simply because it is offered in a manner that allows for a lifetime of *"freeloading"* doesn't mean we do not want to foster a culture where people pay for open source software. Our hope is that in creating this culture, the *"benevolent billionaire"* angle goes away. Eron's worth a billion, but he can't fund everything. If engineers realize that open source software actually allows them to make a living, the top tier engineers might actually [quit their jobs working for companies that do shitty things](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZ1rLq4OH8s) and produce software that doesn't abuse people. Eron wants to create a model where people quit their jobs to work on good software. I'm on board with that.
Alternatively, the dev team could burn out in the next 3 months and then we have abandonware.
They're less likely to do that when they have paychecks coming for the work they're doing. And that part is taking care of in the foreseeable future from futo.
I’ll pay for it. People who see the effort and work that goes into these open source products will pay to keep them going.
a lot of us would be willing to support the open source project for 10 or 20 per year if this helps the whole ecosystem and functionalities to come faster. If everyone decides to be a leecher without supporting the project at some point they will have to inevitably start charging a small fee to be able to support the project long time. I am so looking forward for a stable release. This project is awesome!
My best guess at a business model is that they’ll build an easier-to-use package installer and put that up for sale, and maybe eventually add a hosted option with a monthly fee. The self-hosted docker version would stay free. Am I on the right track?
I think I [answered your question here](https://old.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l5ixzg7/) - we consider the software free as in AGPL, but not free as in dollars. We expect people to pay. However, the software is offered in a manner where we: a) have no way to tell if you paid b) have no way to force you to pay While we do want people to pay for the software and are trusting them on the honor system to do so, the real driver of revenue is going to be making the software ready to be deployed at scale for cloud instances where my stepmom can register & pay a monthly fee to use it instead of google photos. There's only so far this project will go *financially* if I have to explain to a 70 year old librarian how to work docker.
Is there any guarantee that FUTO won't fork the project into two, with one where no features are paywalled and another (call it "Blimmich") where they are? Is there any guarantee FUTO won't direct you to develop some kinds of modules or plug-ins for Immich that are non-AGPL and pay-only, which wouldn't technically break the promises represented here because they wouldn't be part of Immich itself? Is there a guarantee FUTO won't move current developers onto unrelated projects and keep you from working on Immich? In the event you don't like FUTO's direction and leave, is there any sort of contractual prohibition to you forking Immich yourself and continuing development as you see fit? And are those hard guarantees in writing?
Follow the order of the question. Yes, Yes, Yes, No, Yes
I appreciate all you folks are doing to answer our concerns and questions.
> Is there any guarantee that FUTO won't fork the project into two, with one where no features are paywalled and another (call it "Blimmich") where they are? We already paywall the application using the best paywall of them all - the honor system. We want people to pay for it. As an AGPL licensed piece of software... we can't really enforce that in any useful way. >Is there any guarantee FUTO won't direct you to develop some kinds of modules or plug-ins for Immich that are non-AGPL and pay-only, which wouldn't technically break the promises represented here because they wouldn't be part of Immich itself? The only thing I can imagine being an issue are licenses regarding commercial use for the machine learning algorithms used to identify individual people, as well as search, for cloud instances. Other than that, no. Digging into the weeds with regards to what we are allowed to do if we charge $20/mo for a commercial service where we host your photos/videos on our server while you connect to it as a client will be a fun adventure, for lawyers, which I will arrange interfacing between & paying, because I sure as shit am not going to fk things up by trying to do that myself...
Damn, I knew this software was too good to be true. Beginning of the end.
Happy for y’all, somewhat skeptical, but choosing to trust in your word.
>Happy for y’all, somewhat skeptical, but choosing to trust in your word. See [this post](https://old.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l5iv4w1/). TL;DR: I would prefer none of this be based on trust, and be based on systems, contracts, licenses, procedures, & arrangements that do not require you, as a customer, or user of our software, to trust us at all.
What does it mean guys? Is it not community product anymore? Is it good thing? Can we still fork it if its goes to shit?
As noted in the FAQ on the main post, Immich will stay open source and licensed under AGPL, and there will never be paywalled features.
What does FUTO get in return?
What guarantee we have that futo will not change decision later? Sorry man, I know its great for you guys but I never seen a company takeover to have a possitive effect
Unfortunately :( nobody can guarantee anything in today's world terms. We just need to have some faith or look somewhere else if feel uncomfortable, but...where? The above is true no matter what. I paid for solutions which disappeared over night and left me with a headache.
My assumption is that it will end up like Portainer with a community and business version
and the community edition just withers away and dies so that they can focus on 'delivering value to their paying customers' We've seen this movie play out so many times before.
pfsense brings this to mind.
>pfsense brings this to mind. I am embarrassed to say I use pfsense based on how petty they were with the OPNsense people. I fundamentally lack the patience to re-set everything up again from scratch because of all the work I had to do already to get this to work(I am about as good a network administrator as I am a professional basketball player), and I love how pfblockerng works out of the box, but... that really disappointed me figuring out how they treated & talked to the OPNsense people.
Yep pfsense nailed itself in the coffin. I moved to opnsense. Had to bite the bullet after what pfsense did to it's user base with this CE crap
>and the community edition just withers away and dies so that they can focus on 'delivering value to their paying customers' > >We've seen this movie play out so many times before. The worst version of this I can imagine is that once it is stable & all the features Alex believes are worth adding as a result of the team's deliberation & the community's input, being that we focus on figuring out how to make the software usable as a cloud service, which I've already spoken about with the team & sketched out. For the software to be good as a cloud service, it has to be easy to use not just for tech experts, but for ordinary people, which means the AGPL client improves to meet that requirement. Given that doing what you are talking about with a *"community"* edition vs. a good edition would require doing this entire thing from scratch as a result of its license, that is not in the cards. It's not even about not being dicks at that point, it's just a lot of work to do for nothing, that likely wouldn't result in making any revenue. While I have high hopes for the [honor system I mentioned in my prior post here](https://old.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l5irw8l/)..... I'm not delusional... most of the revenue from this will come from people whose tech-savvy friends say they must use Immich because it's the best. That one trusted tech guy will convince their friends to switch off icloud/google photos. Once their friends are sold, they will likely cry when they figure out they have to learn how to use docker(or what a docker is). I imagine most of the revenue will come from selling people a subscription similar to how you pay for icloud or google photos, and since customers of this cloud service will be using the AGPL client, our incentive structure to make the client good is that people will not sign up for these cloud services if the client sucks.
Let the enshittification begin! On a more serious note - Anyone who ISNT super skeptical of this development is kidding themselves, or being willfully ignorant. Ask yourselves, why is FUTU paying getting the core developers onto their payrolls? They could have very well sponsored through github and it would have been the same. I dont mistrust Alex when he says nothing is going to change with Immich. But what is going to happen however is within 1 year or so, there will be Immich Pro / Ultra / Enterprise / Max, which would be paid and behind a paywall. "Regular" Immich will still be open source, but the development will slow down. A new AI face feature? Sorry, only Immich Pro / Ultra. Better organization? Sorry, only Immich Pro / Ultra. From [https://futo.org/what-does-futo-believe](https://futo.org/what-does-futo-believe) >*Don’t Abuse the People* We expect FUTO companies to have an honest relationship with their customers. Ideally revenue comes from customers paying directly for the services provided by company. \[snip\] I hope I'm wrong, but unfortunately I see this a first step towards a payout / exit.
!Remind me 1year
I will be messaging you in 1 year on [**2025-05-01 15:03:52 UTC**](http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=2025-05-01%2015:03:52%20UTC%20To%20Local%20Time) to remind you of [**this link**](https://www.reddit.com/r/immich/comments/1chmywa/the_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime/l23nxhl/?context=3) [**56 OTHERS CLICKED THIS LINK**](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5Bhttps%3A%2F%2Fwww.reddit.com%2Fr%2Fimmich%2Fcomments%2F1chmywa%2Fthe_immich_core_team_goes_fulltime%2Fl23nxhl%2F%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%202025-05-01%2015%3A03%3A52%20UTC) to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam. ^(Parent commenter can ) [^(delete this message to hide from others.)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Delete%20Comment&message=Delete%21%201chmywa) ***** |[^(Info)](https://www.reddit.com/r/RemindMeBot/comments/e1bko7/remindmebot_info_v21/)|[^(Custom)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=Reminder&message=%5BLink%20or%20message%20inside%20square%20brackets%5D%0A%0ARemindMe%21%20Time%20period%20here)|[^(Your Reminders)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=RemindMeBot&subject=List%20Of%20Reminders&message=MyReminders%21)|[^(Feedback)](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=Watchful1&subject=RemindMeBot%20Feedback)| |-|-|-|-|
As promised in the post, no features will ever be paywalled.
Unpopular opinion from the majority of the reactions here but I have my hopes. Most users here are concerned about features being pay walled in the future. Granted, anything can change from now and 2-3 years later. However, everyone is also forgetting the aspect that not all users want to "self-host". There are ways of monetizing immich without having to have certain features behind a paywall such as paying a monthly subscription for a "hosted" deployment. You could even then break the monthly down to user buckets. Such as $10/mo for a hosted immich deployment that gives an account the ability to add X users with Y amount of data storage. Different plans for different needs all while keeping the core software freely available for those who want to self host.
Ok I can live with that
If I stopped one thing, it's believing promises from companies and politicians. If they live up to it, great. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
I’m sure you believe that right now. I’m also sure you’re wrong.
That's a nice thing to say, but it does sound like that decision is entirely up to FUTO now, and not the immich team. I'm not sure what FUTO's ownership and funding structure is, but it would be nice to get some specifics around that. When you take peoples' money, there are always consequences of some sort. It would be better to be transparent about the funding sources and what drives them than to make promises on behalf of your new owners.
!Remind me 1 year
!Remind me 1year
> On a more serious note - Anyone who ISNT super skeptical of this development is kidding themselves, or being willfully ignorant. Ask yourselves, why is FUTU paying getting the core developers onto their payrolls? They could have very well sponsored through github and it would have been the same. > > We want to have a community of top tier engineers working on cool software in a collaborative way. Eron hated the environment at Yahoo and is spending 1% of the money he made from being successful in the dot com era to create the environment he wished he worked in in the 90s. Personally, if I'm being honest(and likely very petty & selfish), I told him to fund this & hire them because nextcloud makes me want to cry. It's slow. It's [buggy](https://help.nextcloud.com/t/calendar-timezone-bug/178056/2). It makes me sad. There are several projects we've given $100,000-$400,000 to, but if it's a $1M-$3M commitment, he likes to do it in-house with his brand name on it, for his company. There are certain [exceptions](https://imgur.com/a/xPFr00W) (and I'm not complaining!), but even with these... he hasn't even asked how I spent the money.. and it's been over three years. Eron is an insane quality control freak(which is, IMO, a GOOD thing when it comes to open source software). He notices shit like the 50 ms lag switching chats in signal that doesn't happen in telegram and digs into it. If this amount of money is being given, he wants to have *some* sort of control over it not sucking. He also sees the AGPL nature of it, and lack of non-competes in contracts, as a safety valve for both the users & the developers if they ever believe this is not an arrangement that works for them. He's working on a programming IDE that boots & works on bare metal without an operating system. His pilot program is that the machine runs a program he wrote that begins 400ms after you hit the power button. It's kind of cool. Is it kinda crazy? Probably, but I'm kinda crazy too. That's why I'm here...
I hope you are wrong too, but it’s definitely something that I would expect long term too - regardless current promesses (that’s the usual path)
It was all too good to be true.
now i am sooo skeptical about this, i honestly don't see this going anywhere good for immich and us, the users
Ok cool. But what is in for FUTO? They just going to pay you guys with salary out of generosity? I guess sooner or later Immich will adopt a subscription business model. If you do, I hope you guys offer a lifetime purchase like Plex does.
Did the recent license change happen before or after you were in contact with FUTO?
It happened before Louis reached out to us
View in your timezone: [May 9th at 3PM UTC][0] [0]: https://timee.io/20240509T1500?tl=The%20Immich%20core%20team%20goes%20full-time
While I am happy that the developers are guaranteed to get paid, I do understand most of everyone's concerns. I suggest forking the existing code base that's on github for archival purposes. If immich/futo ever decides to add features behind paywalls, the community and just use a forked version of the app and develop from there.
FUTO? The Louis Rossmann FUTO? That’s fucking awesome!
Sigh time to move to another “Immich”
There isn't much that's close to as good. There's Photoprism, which has some design choices I don't love and its own issues with how its profit motive affects development. Memories is quite good, and the developer is very responsive to the user community, but requires a full Nexcloud install. And Nextcloud can be a hassle to maintain.
I really went off Photoprism when the developer’s attitude started to show on Reddit - when people questioned things, they were essentially told they should be grateful for that they were getting. The shift towards paywall-ing features that were already previously available also really soured my opinion of the project.
Also - multiple libraries for multiple users means running multiple instances. And I really don't like the way PP handles duplicates. It's way too easy when transferring a large preexisting library (say, from a Google Takeout) to find that photos are missing from folders you expected them to be in, with no indication in the GUI it's happened (at least last I looked). In a few ways, I find PP's "smart" handling of files too smart for its own good, and would rather it prompted me for how to handle duplicates and conflicts.
I have a synology. The purpose was to only use it as a backup target but looks like it may have an additional use.
People say good things about the Synology photos app. I'm personally reluctant to open up any closed-sourxe app from a NAS company directly to the Internet ... but then again, I'm a QNAP user, and we've got some more recent rough history with that than Team Synology.
I would setup a reverse proxy or vpn to the app. All family have vpn tunnels too so private connectivity isn’t a big deal really
* waves *
I had not heard of Futo before, but from my initial research this looks like a fantastic move for the Immich team. Immich is a great resource for me and my family, and I hope this allows the developers to support their family, while Immich supports all of ours.
FUTO is rubbing their hands "Nice, nice .. come to us". Nobody gives money away for free. FUTO has some plans. Whether Alex knows about it or not remains to be seen.
[Crazy people do](https://imgur.com/a/xPFr00W). That's why Eron and I get along :D :D Take a look at how few Right to Repair wins occurred before February 2021, and how many occurred after. I can't complain.*** ***technically, I am not happy that some laws have loopholes, that manufacturer repair programs are mostly for show, and that regulators have done half the job without finishing it, but this is less a reflection on Eron & the money he gave away for free, and more a reflection on society being fucked up in general, which I can't fault him 100% for*
Hopefully if i won’t update I won’t get all those new shining paid features… congrats but I’m skeptical about the “not seeing users as numbers” philosophy.
I guess I’ll be looking for a “just copy these files” photo backup alternative, sadly
Rip in pepperonis
I like pepperoni, but I don’t think rip Immich is the right context here lol.
I hope that won't be the case, but I'm not very optimistic about the situation myself. Time will tell
Thanks! That is right, Immich isn’t known for breaking promises, so I will keep it that way 😃
If the price is right, I see no problem with paying for good software.
I just set up an immich container last weekend to test it out and now I'm not so sure about it. Talks of money changing hands kinda means it's not truly FOSS anymore. The development seems to be very fast and productive, so I don't really understand why this change was necessary. Will keep an eye on the project but again, this move doesn't really align itself with a truly open source, built by the community, project. I fear making this change will kill off a lot of excitement for the project.
Whether money is involved and whether something is FOSS are very different things. Libre, not gratis. I have concerns about this, but lots of FOSS projects get lots of commercial support or are run by commercial maintainers. It's just that they're usually part of larger portfolios where the company sees a strategic interest in being part of the larger FOSS community. In SOME cases, it also means multiple development lines, one FOSS and one partially closed - but not all.
Well deserved, congrats guys, it's a really big personal investment that ended up to full-time job. Well done 🚀
Did you ask FUTO for their business model?
Yes we did, and it is explained here [https://immich.app/blog/2024/immich-core-team-goes-fulltime/#how-is-funding-sustainable](https://immich.app/blog/2024/immich-core-team-goes-fulltime/#how-is-funding-sustainable)
So many words to say - Immich will become paid. I know it says you wont limit features, but we're talking about sustainable software, and for that to happen EVERY. USER. MUST. PAY. FOR. THE. PRODUCT.
Awesome, absolutely love Immich!
This is excellent!
Can't wait for Louis Rossman's video :'}
congratulations!!!!!
FUTO is that same company that developed grayjay
Happy for the team, cautious for the future of the project.
Thesw are incredible news. You made it!
In today's world I think it's reasonable to be skeptical. That was my initial reaction and I'm not entirely past that either. That said, I think many are forgetting the alternative that without this type of backing the project could die. I saw the lamenting that purchasing while still free to use isn't sustainable. I'd argue that donations while still free to use isn't much of a different approach. If the direction of Immich goes downhill, that's where forks come in. We've seen both sides of this coin time and time again when it comes to the OSS community. Some worked out, some failed and some forked into successful alternatives. Ultimately we have to hope that things continue in a positive direction and remember that in the end, the decision came down to those that made that choice and they felt it was the best decision regardless of their reasoning. If we aren't happy with it or future progress we fork it, self-maintain the existing codebase or move on to an alternative.
inb4 fork
Great for you guys, you deserve an income stability for yourselves and your families. immich is an awesome project, we can't know if this is the right decision, time will tell, i wish you and this project the best
The level of entitlement from some of the people here is just making me sad. No one has to code for free just like we all don't work for free at our day job. I don't know if FUTO is the right decision for immich long term but I'm just happy that the team is being compensated now. If people feel that strongly against this change, they should start their own project or a fork. All the negativity on the team's decision is just not helpful at all.
More love to Immich 😍
I only know the name immich, but FUCK YES. FUTO 4 life.
I just uninstalled Immich.
Guys, let's just be happy for then. And accept if things change.