ProxmoxVE will change LICENCE?

Well, it seems that I'm not the only one confused by this new licensing scheme, or how the PVE team call it, "support model". I'm somewhat relieved, and sincerely hope they make it clear for once and for all. It's not really the price that's high (it's not altho I dislike per-cpu models), but the introduction of it. Imagine the scenario above: 100 servers, non-profit organisation, and suddenly to be able to run the very same software you were running up till now, you need to shell out around 5000 euros that creates a huge unforeseen hole in the yearly budget. My wild guess is that many users will steer away to other VM-managers after this.
 
Well, it seems that I'm not the only one confused by this new licensing scheme, or how the PVE team call it, "support model". I'm somewhat relieved, and sincerely hope they make it clear for once and for all. It's not really the price that's high (it's not altho I dislike per-cpu models), but the introduction of it. Imagine the scenario above: 100 servers, non-profit organisation, and suddenly to be able to run the very same software you were running up till now, you need to shell out around 5000 euros that creates a huge unforeseen hole in the yearly budget. My wild guess is that many users will steer away to other VM-managers after this.
We have 132 servers in production, 64 has 4xCPU, 68 - 2xCPU. So per year we have to pay 19568,64 еuros for community licence. It's not suitable for us. So we need to change virtualisation platform for really free, or just hire one freelance person to rebuilding the proxmox source packages (license will permit it) and support the local repo and will pay for one licence for source code obtaining.
 
Be serious.. HUNDRED of HW servers, and you don't have money to buy a subscription that costs around the price of a Windows antivirus? Non-profit means that the hardware, electricity, people time, location, etc.. has been provided you for free, or you don't have money just to support a Free Software project? I find all this ridiculous. And if you really have no money just for Proxmox, I think you can happily live with the "no enterprise" repo, or grab/fork the code, recompile, test, improve, patch, provide support etc on it for all people around FOR FREE.Freedom of code has a price, if you want 100% dedicated programmers and support, and not just relay upon some 16years old hobbyist mood, is the only way to go.
We use only a free soft, so have no any licence payments. And we have no additional money for Proxmox Enterprise. One of the most important criteria for us it's a free software. Proxmox WAS free.I hope we will continue to use the Proxmox VE in the future if source code will be available.
 
We have 132 servers in production, 64 has 4xCPU, 68 - 2xCPU. So per year we have to pay 19568,64 еuros for community licence. It's not suitable for us. So we need to change virtualisation platform for really free, or just hire one freelance person to rebuilding the proxmox source packages (license will permit it) and support the local repo and will pay for one licence for source code obtaining.
Well, yes. However the license used by PVE doesn't allow a paying model for sources IIRC, they should always be available for everyone without a fee, unrestricted.
 
We have 132 servers in production, 64 has 4xCPU, 68 - 2xCPU. So per year we have to pay 19568,64 еuros for community licence. It's not suitable for us. So we need to change virtualisation platform for really free, or just hire one freelance person to rebuilding the proxmox source packages (license will permit it) and support the local repo and will pay for one licence for source code obtaining.
Do you mean 4 and 2 x CPU is 1 CPU 4 cores and 1 CPU 2 cores? If this is the case you will only need to by one subscription per server. That is if I read the subscription agreement correct. In your case it will 132 x 4.16€ / month <=> 6589.44 € / year.

If you have ever negotiated license payment with Microsoft, IBM or Oracle you should know that 6589.44 € / year is to be counted as peanuts.
 
Do you mean 4 and 2 x CPU is 1 CPU 4 cores and 1 CPU 2 cores? If this is the case you will only need to by one subscription per server. That is if I read the subscription agreement correct. In your case it will 132 x 4.16€ / month 6589.44 € / year.If you have ever negotiated license payment with Microsoft, IBM or Oracle you should know that 6589.44 € / year is to be counted as peanuts.
I mean sockets so my calculation is right.And we choose Proxmox as a opensource and free solution for our wants. We started from 1.x version and planning to no any payments in future.
 
I remind you that "community forum" gets a lot of attention and answers from Proxmox team members. Do you want them to still have time to answer the (community) forum or do you prefer they quit proxmox and find another well paid job?

THIS!

Repository bandwidth is not free, someone needs to pay for it.
Developers are not free, someone has to pay for them.
Compiling code takes time and labor, need more money.
Responding to questions on the forums requires labor, need more money.
Setting up a test lab is not free and requires money

The source is open and free
Maintaining, patching, fixing, testing, compiling, distributing and supporting all cost real money and it needs to come from somewhere.

They are only asking that you pay for the stable binaries.
They still provide you free support (this forum and mailing lists), free fixing, free patching, free testing, free compiling and free distributing.
That is a heck of a lot of free they provide to anyone, what is there to complain about?

People have options:
1. Subscribe, your money supports the project, without money Proxmox does not exist.
2. Use the free repo , might be less stable, your contributions on reporting bugs and community involvement is how you support Proxmox
3. Grab the source and roll your own binaries, you still have the same open source freedom you had before this change
 
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Simply compare package versions.
Thanks, but this is kinda moot, since I don't know the enterprise package versions without paying upfront. Can the enterprise package versions be obtained without that for compiling them from source?
 
THIS!

Repository bandwidth is not free, someone needs to pay for it.
Developers are not free, someone has to pay for them.
Compiling code takes time and labor, need more money.
Responding to questions on the forums requires labor, need more money.
Setting up a test lab is not free and requires money

The source is open and free
Maintaining, patching, fixing, testing, compiling, distributing and supporting all cost real money and it needs to come from somewhere.

They are only asking that you pay for the stable binaries.
They still provide you free support (this forum and mailing lists), free fixing, free patching, free testing, free compiling and free distributing.
That is a heck of a lot of free they provide to anyone, what is there to complain about?

People have options:
1. Subscribe, your money supports the project, without money Proxmox does not exist.
2. Use the free repo , might be less stable, your contributions on reporting bugs and community involvement is how you support Proxmox
3. Grab the source and roll your own binaries, you still have the same open source freedom you had before this change

OK,
Conclusion : PROXMOXVE= PAY

nobody say otherwise, you just tell the truth.

People who want to lose their freedom, and continues to pay proxmoxve, since it is no longer a choice.

It is the right of the Proxmox company to get paid.

For others, there are : oVirt, openstack, CloudStack ...

The community just wants the truth, on this one you took the members of the community for idiots.

Sorry for this truth.
 
THIS!

Repository bandwidth is not free, someone needs to pay for it.
Developers are not free, someone has to pay for them.
Compiling code takes time and labor, need more money.
Responding to questions on the forums requires labor, need more money.
Setting up a test lab is not free and requires money

The source is open and free
Maintaining, patching, fixing, testing, compiling, distributing and supporting all cost real money and it needs to come from somewhere.

They are only asking that you pay for the stable binaries.
They still provide you free support (this forum and mailing lists), free fixing, free patching, free testing, free compiling and free distributing.
That is a heck of a lot of free they provide to anyone, what is there to complain about?

People have options:
1. Subscribe, your money supports the project, without money Proxmox does not exist.
2. Use the free repo , might be less stable, your contributions on reporting bugs and community involvement is how you support Proxmox
3. Grab the source and roll your own binaries, you still have the same open source freedom you had before this change
I do not think that anybody is doubting that resources, be it human or hardware and internet bandwidth, costs money. This is not the question here. I don't see a convenient preparation and/or decision making path for existing users. We are simply discouraged from using the free version of the products and at the same time told to pay for a kind of support if we want to continue using a stable and proven product. Anyone taking this seriously, has to make a decision you already outlined in your post. HA systems, for one, just can't run on software that is declared unstable by its author, this is just nuts. But the decision is to be made on an individual basis, and the ones making these decisions have a very different view on things compared to us, IT people. If they determined they can't or don't want to pay, they won't and are going to go for free alternatives. That is bad for PVE as a whole.

I'm fine with paying, up to a certain amount, but many are not. Think of non-for-profit organisations or just small startups where virtualisation is a necessity, not just convenience, but with an obviously limited budget. They might start with a non-paying model, risking stability on the short term tho. But I'm afraid that even some of my customers will simply abandon PVE instead of paying, despite I always have been an advocate of it wherever virtualisation came into the picture.
 
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Simply compare package versions.
Do you planning to add a deb-src line in sources.list for an enterprise repo? Sometimes we will need to make some small changes in pve package (kernel). Of course, we can get sources from GIT but it's more complicated and we need to keep track versions manually. So if we will pay for access to ent repo will be fair to have possibility just get the source of package, right?
 
Repository bandwidth is not free, someone needs to pay for it.
That's why you have mirrors. There a lots of companies and universities who provide mirror space for open source projects.But proxmox team obviously dind't wan to go that way.
Developers are not free, someone has to pay for them.
That's why you have to involve the community. Something that Proxmox failed to accomplish especially in the beginning when they were more or less locking the community out.
Compiling code takes time and labor, need more Money.
Proxmox is largely based on Debian, so much of that bill has already been paid by others
Responding to questions on the forums requires labor, need more money.
It is not compulsory for open source developers to respond to questitions in a forum, this should be handled by the community. Companies _should_ sell their support, not their binaries.
Setting up a test lab is not free and requires money.
Also a Thing that successful open souce projects outsource to the community. ...and by the way, the QA of proxmox is not thaaat great. Just look in this Forum.

They are only asking that you pay for the stable binaries..
This is a business plan that does work for Enterprise grade Software (like RHEL), but for small/medium projects like Proxmox this will fail. If one want Enterprise ready virtualisation with support he will go for RHEV or VMware which is much more stable and better tested, and if you don't need support there are lots of competitors like oVirt that have a much broader backing in the community.
 
Thanks, but this is kinda moot, since I don't know the enterprise package versions without paying upfront. Can the enterprise package versions be obtained without that for compiling them from source?

The idea is that the enterprise service is only available for customers, so the simple answer is 'no'.
 
Enterprise ready virtualisation with support he will go for RHEV or VMware which is much more stable and better tested, and if you don't need support there are lots of competitors like oVirt that have a much broader backing in the community.

Feel free to use those product if you think they are better. But this is the Proxmox VE support forum, so this is likely the wrong place to promote VMware or RHEV.
 
The idea is that the enterprise service is only available for customers, so the simple answer is 'no'.
Wait, what. No.

You provide the enterprise binaries and support for them, for a fee. I only asked for the relation between the source versions and the enterprise packages, not the end binary packages themselves. Under your chosen OSS model, you're not allowed to withhold sources as far as I know (other users more familiar with AGPLv3 might comfirm or deny this). You yourself admitted this, providing a link to your GIT repo. Or is the entire enterprise repository setup is misunderstood again? Please be very clear. We can't do anything but accept your terms but the way you phrase them and the confusion they create here and in other threads is very unsettling.
 

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