MODERATOR REMOVAL: No valid subscription popup removal

[esi_y]

There are people out there who willingly try to scam their customers - minimum effort for maximum return - while remaining absolutely clueless.

I can believe that, caveat emptor. I do not know what Proxmox is doing in an effort to have e.g. end user verify with them that they indeed have a subscription. But by your own admission, this cannot rely on a locally (patched) JS invoked pop-up anyhow. Also consider one can run the whole thing with entirely own GUI and just make use of the API.

I won't go too much into detail but I have uncovered "rebranded" open source projects

Yes and if they were the clueless folks, they would have cluelessly applied some Github patch anyhow. What is this forum (as moderated) supporting? More of those?

Everything in proxmox is open source - so in theory you could just go ahead and modify almost everything.

It is literally using bits and pieces of equally licensed parts to its own benefit, that's the whole point of licensing like this.

But if you *claim* that you own the softare (i.e. are the developer of it), then rip out the nag screen and invoice the customer ridiculous amounts of money it's a con.

That's a legal problem for the two parties involved, nothing to do with censoring select patches just because you do not like a particular one.

 

[iprigger]

That's a legal problem for the two parties involved, nothing to do with censoring select patches just because you do not like a particular one.

The question that arises here is: what do you want your subscription fee being used for:

a) Development and providing good service

or

b) legal battles

I have had to testify as an expert witness in such cases. Not funny, expensive and time consuming.

I wish some open source projects would spend a bit more funds on hunting scammers - but I fully understand that many don't do this as long as it's not getting out of hand.

Tobias

 

[iprigger]

That's a legal problem for the two parties involved, nothing to do with censoring select patches just because you do not like a particular one.

It's Proxmox' decision what they want to have on the forum - and what they don't want. If you post this on your own website it wouldn't be so much of an issue.

If I may so: Proxmox has the rights to decide who's allowed to pee on their carpet.

posting a howto how you can remove the "nag" is not something I would want on my forum, too - or would you?

Tobias

 

[esi_y]

I wish some open source projects would spend a bit more funds on hunting scammers - but I fully understand that many don't do this as long as it's not getting out of hand.

I was getting at the fact that if a customer has been scammed by a third party, they have good basis for a legal case with them.

It's Proxmox' decision what they want to have on the forum - and what they don't want.

Yes, but then again, if I am all about virtue signalling that my product is licensed under GNU Affero [1], why am I censoring:

"Propagation includes copying, distribution (with or without modification), making available to the public, and in some countries other activities as well."

... solely on my otherwise public forum?

Note I am not saying it is a violation to do so, but why am I doing that?

If I may so: Proxmox has the rights to decide who's allowed to pee on their carpet.

Please put it then front and centre, because currently such patch does not fall under "Content which is defamatory, abusive, hateful, threatening, spam or spam-like, likely to offend, contains adult or objectionable content, contains personal information of others, risks copyright infringement, encourages unlawful activity, or otherwise violates any laws." [2]

(Please do not tell me about the remaining catchall phrases, they are there just to avoid legal liability.)

posting a howto how you can remove the "nag" is not something I would want on my forum, too - or would you?

This is not really about me, but since you ask, I would feel I have some Jekyll and Hyde going on within if I were:

1. licensing out under GPL; and
2. wanting users to NOT modify specifically SOME of my code ONLY; and
3. sneakily avoid mentioning any of this in my forum rules.

Note I have posted the patch because I could not find any other patches on the forum - they did not appear removed, they appeared like they were discussions, but no particular content.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/agpl-3.0.en.html
[2] https://forum.proxmox.com/help/terms/

 

[esi_y]

No.. wait, its the Proxmox forum ToS.

Another separate find, of your own - so you prefer more of the same, all the time?

you dont know that at least once a month a new user pops up on the forum claiming that PVE is broken and nothing works. And after about 10 probing questions, because said user is withholding any information and claims to not have done anything unusual, it turns out that they did apply some half-baked pop-up removal and broke all of the UI functionality.

https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/delete_this_post.141704/#post-635399

Because that's what removing good content on official forum does.

 

[iprigger]

Note I have posted the patch because I could not find any other patches on the forum - they did not appear removed, they appeared like they were discussions, but no particular content.

Agree to disagree.

IMHO you should not have published this on proxmox' forum - that's all I am saying.

You could have done that on your own website - google would have made sure everyone who wants it finds it.

I fully understand why proxmox censored this. This forum is *not* the right place for that.

Also, the discussion about the whole subscription stuff has been already heated enough, especially at that time.

No point in putting more gasoline onto the already burning shed.

Tobias

 

[esi_y]

IMHO you should not have published this on proxmox' forum - that's all I am saying.

I appreciate that, and in the light of "Installation and Configuration" part of the topic, I would like an answer from the Censor, why. Because nothing they publish or associate themselves with would have pointed one to guess this.

I fully understand why proxmox censored this. This forum is *not* the right place for that.

If you think it is self-evident, then I suggest to read through any GPL license and try to reconcile its spirit with what Proxmox has done on their forum relating to their GPL licensed product. Then, try to formulate the "WHY" and put it here. Because so far, it was "we just do not like this" - but there's nothing about allowing to propagate code modifications that you like only in any GPL.

 

[Falk R.]

If you think it is self-evident, then I suggest to read through any GPL license and try to reconcile its spirit with what Proxmox has done on their forum relating to their GPL licensed product. Then, try to formulate the "WHY" and put it here. Because so far, it was "we just do not like this" - but there's nothing about allowing to propagate code modifications that you like only in any GPL.

I'm totally with you on the GPL licenses and the product.
But the forum is not under GPL.
Although there is an expectation that a forum for GPL-licensed software should also be just as open, the company Proxmox GmbH still has the house rights to do as they like.

 

[esi_y]

I'm totally with you on the GPL licenses and the product.
But the forum is not under GPL.
Although there is an expectation that a forum for GPL-licensed software should also be just as open, the company Proxmox GmbH still has the house rights to do as they like.

I do not (and I hope I did not come across as having done so previously) dispute that. What I believe I brought was that I get content
1. moderated (pieces only)
2. closed thread (no apparent reason)
3. would like a reasonable explanation (I gave mine why I believe it's counterproductive)

Unlike some other posts, I do not think I have some special wisdom to tell Proxmox how exactly they should monetise their product, or what would work best for me. I genuinely do not understand the behaviour and the expectation. As mentioned in my opening post, I do not believe it brings in more income.

That I have philosophy-behind "identity crisis" feel out of it all is completely a side track (also with the Frankenstein Community subscription), I really wished to know why THIS particular PATCH is moderated (others which are actually likely to break things apart are not).

 

[iprigger]

If you think it is self-evident, then I suggest to read through any GPL license and try to reconcile its spirit with what Proxmox has done on their forum relating to their GPL licensed product. Then, try to formulate the "WHY" and put it here. Because so far, it was "we just do not like this" - but there's nothing about allowing to propagate code modifications that you like only in any GPL.

The forum is not under the GPL. Besides... it is a great resource for getting Help & Support - so in a way proxmox is already creating their own competition in providing such a resource.

They don't check whether or not you have a (valid) subscription when asking questions in the forum.

It is their Forum - and thus their choice - what they want to have on it and what not.

Tobias

 

[esi_y]

It is their Forum - and thus their choice - what they want to have on it and what not.

And this is a reason why I am not supposed to know why my particular patch was censored?

 

[iprigger]

And this is a reason why I am not supposed to know why my particular patch was censored?

I don't know the exact communication between you and the forum moderation team - so I can't tell much about it, sorry.

Tobias

 

[esi_y]

I don't know the exact communication between you and the forum moderation team - so I can't tell much about it, sorry.

Here you are:

Your post in the thread [TUTORIAL] No valid subscription popup removal (PVE 8.2) was edited. Reason: please don't post subscription pop-up removal instructions in our official forum

 

[iprigger]

Here you are:

.... that sounds like a sound (and valid) explanation to me, sorry.

Tobias

 

[esi_y]

.... that sounds like a sound (and valid) explanation to me, sorry.

The reason for censoring "pop-up removal instructions" (specifically) is that they request me not to ... post them?

The reason for removing something is that they ask me not to publish it (after the fact only)?

 

[Stoiko Ivanov]

Thank you for a decent answer, everyone on the forum deserves it, I believe.

I tried linking to the relevant posts in our thread where this has been discussed - I think the post by @t.lamprecht sums it up pretty well:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/n...subscription-message.72863/page-2#post-457570

I hope this and the points made by our community members in this thread and in the closed one explains our reasoning behind the moderation of such threads.

 

[esi_y]

I tried linking to the relevant posts in our thread where this has been discussed - I think the post by @t.lamprecht sums it up pretty well:
https://forum.proxmox.com/threads/n...subscription-message.72863/page-2#post-457570

I take it as a reference to:

Proxmox VE is 100% open source and all features available everywhere though, and the warning is not there as joke, it's meant that you're not using the system as the vendor recommends it for production use which we obviosuly want to notice our users to avoid issues for them. If your use case isn't a production use, and you've some reasons, to not get a subscription then you will just ignore them.

There's, however, a massive difference between this statement of @t.lamprecht and moderating post with a patch. Since obviously, this acknowledges there are users who do not go for production use, or simply have any other reason (e.g. testing deploying it all of the time), then these are supposed to ignore the popup. One way of ignoring the popup (AGPL compliant, your chosen license) is to remove it (after all, the users know full well they are doing this when following such instructions, it cannot happen by any accident).

My patch was literally assisting in a non-breaking way to ignore the pop-up. It was a one-off, i.e. after an upgrade the user would need to explicitly reapply the patch. I am not sure I appreciate this statement above backing up the moderation. It logically does not follow that such content should be moderated.

I hope this and the points made by our community members in this thread and in the closed one explains our reasoning behind the moderation of such threads.

From the other points, I will just think that you at Proxmox really believe there's much bigger financial benefit in having the pop-up (and forcing it by all other means, even at the cost of antagonising your testing base of users) as opposed to the reputational risk of e.g. users getting their PVE installs compromised due to dubious GitHub patches.

 

[Falk R.]

You could simply post constructive ideas for the staff, such as setting a check mark to confirm that the installation is not productive.
A pop-up like this could then appear every 30 days if the project is productive in the meantime.

Maybe you have a better idea. As a rule, the staff is always open to constructive suggestions.

 

[esi_y]

You could simply post constructive ideas for the staff

That's where there was the other (series of) threads where they literally rejected anything NON-INTRUSIVE, I believe (not just me) pitched a banner instead.

, such as setting a check mark to confirm that the installation is not productive.

This is definitely not intrusive enough.

A pop-up like this could then appear every 30 days if the project is productive in the meantime.

I believe others mentioned this before multiple times, fallen on deaf ears.

Maybe you have a better idea. As a rule, the staff is always open to constructive suggestions.

The irony is, that e.g. the patch of mine (that got censored) would have gotten you just that ... removal of popup till literally next update (because I do not do brave postinst hooks in the dark). That while NOT requesting PVE staff to do anything THEY DO NOT LIKE.

So this was all done, I refrained from convoluting this thread, but now you know. You yourself suggested it's alright with you. My only grievance would be the AGPL (i.e. we want you literally to SHARE BACK everything you do) and then the forum behaviour (but NOT ON OUR PLATFORM).

@t.lamprecht is also welcome to comment further on the above, but somehow I expect that if you fuel this thread it will be closed (that's an answer too). I will just leave it here open for the answer (maybe I am wrong, maybe it comes later).

 

[esi_y]

As requested, the inscrutable has been moved off to GitHub:
EDIT:

Link removed by forum moderation

I am aware you may want to censor the link itself, even though it is unlikely to be followed by anyone searching the content from within this thread.

I am merely:

- Giving you the opportunity to contact me without delay should you want to raise any trademark violation concerns. @martin
- Letting you tacitly acknowledge there will not be any further replies @t.lamprecht
- In the spirit of AGPL making the modification available to the community by other means than your forum as you exercised your right to remove the content here. @Stoiko Ivanov