Immich x FUTO Q&A ( www.youtube.com )

Short version of this interview is that nothing is changing, other than they're going to be asking a flat fee "$5-20" for the app, rather than relying on donations. All donation platforms have been closed. However, if you choose not to, as Louis says "that's between you and your God".

Project will remain AGPL and thus can be forked at any time. FUTO maintains the trademark of Immich name and logos.

ReallyActuallyFrankenstein , (edited )

From their website: https://futo.org/what-is-futo/

What is FUTO?
FUTO is an organization dedicated to developing, both through in-house engineering and investment, technologies that frustrate centralization and industry consolidation.

Ok... So what does that mean?

Through a combination of in-house engineering projects, targeted investments, generous grants, and multi-media public education efforts, we will free technology from the control of the few and recreate the spirit of freedom, innovation, and self-reliance that underpinned the American tech industry only a few decades ago.

FUTO is not reliant on any existing tech company or venture capital firm for its funding. We are not expecting quick profits. We will never cash out with a sale to a megacorporation the moment our technology begins to catch on. We will focus entirely on the mission.

If you share these goals, either as a user or a developer, we ask you to watch this space and get ready to throw off the stultifying limitations of the current state of affairs. We want to return to an era where a substantial portion of computer users can understand, control, and use their technology as they see fit without the approval or input of oligarchs. And we need your help.

Ok so... What does that mean?

Maybe the OP's video explains these things (I hate watching videos for things like this), but I really thought I'd be able to find an explanation, in practical terms, of what this organization actually does on their own website.

Sunny ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Am happy to see good backing to Immich!

JustEnoughDucks ,
@JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl avatar

What is Futo? Their website says absolutely nothing besides their "company values."

What is their business model?

Who is running it?

How do they earn money to give out?

What do they ask in return besides hoarding the trademarks?

Flat fee is always good, but I am always skeptical about these sort of completely opaque, altruistic companies that often turn into not-so-altruistic companies after they see more profit capabilities.

acockworkorange ,

What is their business model?

Selling free software without enforcing it.

How do they earn money to give out?

See above.

What do they ask in return besides hoarding the trademarks?

Cash.

Corgana ,
@Corgana@startrek.website avatar

Uhh... why did you just paste the comments from the video without the answers?

h3ndrik ,

Most important thing with FUTO is, they learn how to do open source and engage with a community. Maybe it helps if they adopt a few projects with existing communities and which are more than source available.

Sunny ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Isn't this the company of Louis Rossman?

helenslunch OP ,

The company he works for, yes. Louis is in the video in OP

Sunny ,
@Sunny@slrpnk.net avatar

Oh my bad, didnt see that it was a video on mobile for some reason. Watching now :=)

jvh ,

I'm currently in the process of moving my family off of Google photos to Immich. Both my partner and I pay Google at the moment because we have to due to amount of photos. And that's only going to increase.

Immich is great but there are also a lot of bugs. The shared albums that my wider family use for example is very buggy. So paying an amount that I might have paid Google for those bugs to be fixed while self hosting I would be very happy with I think.

However, I was thinking of attacking those bugs myself and contributing bug fixes to the project. But what happens now that it's a commercial product essentially? Will they still accept code from pull requests from outside their organisation? Will any devs who spend a lot of time contributing get anything for their work? E.g. if I was providing time and code for a product then had to pay to use it that might seem a bit mean.

helenslunch OP ,

Will they still accept code from pull requests from outside their organisation?

That's answered in the video. Nothing is changing. Yes, they still accept contributions.

Will any devs who spend a lot of time contributing get anything for their work? E.g. if I was providing time and code for a product then had to pay to use it that might seem a bit mean.

That's the way it's worked since day 1.

jvh ,

Will they still accept code from pull requests from outside their organisation?

That’s answered in the video. Nothing is changing. Yes, they still accept contributions.

OK cool, I missed that bit. I've found it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwz2iZwYpgg&t=1960s

Will any devs who spend a lot of time contributing get anything for their work? E.g. if I was providing time and code for a product then had to pay to use it that might seem a bit mean.

That’s the way it’s worked since day 1.

It wasn't a commercially backed product since day 1. This is more of a general question I guess.. how does this work for open source projects like Immich when it's commercially backed where there are some developers paid to work on it, but other developers contributing of their own accord. Would they receive some sort of benefit for having worked on it. E.g. not have to pay for using the product they've worked on perhaps if they meet a threshold of having contributed enough to it? I just wonder how that tends to work for open source projects which are also commercial in nature.

myliltoehurts ,

I have never seen contributors get anything for open source contributions.

In larger, more established projects, they explicitly make you sign an agreement that your contributions are theirs for free (in the form of a github bot that tells you this when you open a PR). Sometimes you get as much as being mentioned in a readme or changelog, but that's pretty much it.

I'm sure there may be some examples of the opposite, I just.. Wouldn't hold my breath for it in general.

jvh ,

Thanks, was just curious as to what tends to happen.

helenslunch OP , (edited )

Open source has a long history of commercial backing. Ever heard of a little project called NextCloud? Matrix? Nothing changes. It all works the same way, because it's still AGPL license.

jvh ,

So with the android app, they said they would charge for that. But I guess the .apk would be on Github but you'd pay if you installed it from the app store?

helenslunch OP ,

You can look at some of their existing apps to see how this works.

RootBeerGuy ,
@RootBeerGuy@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

Flat fee is good. If its subscription I am hoping for forks.

Edit: also, I don't care what they say they plan to do. In the end actions matter. They can say now its just a small flat fee but 6 months in they can change their mind and make the crappiest micro transaction model they can think of.

RegalPotoo ,
@RegalPotoo@lemmy.world avatar

Seems pretty reasonable. At the end of the day people have to eat, so projects like this either trundle on as hobby-and-spare-time projects for a few years until people get bored and burnt out, or you find a way to make working on the project a paid gig for the core people

geography082 ,

I saw it comming. The development was on steroids the last months, so it was all arranged. This piss me off.

helenslunch OP ,

Why does it piss you off, exactly?

BaroqueInMind ,

Something that was once free and adequate, is now enshittified with "improvements" to entice me to pay.

dallen ,

If the open source release is adequate then you can just continue using it… Or fork for your needs.

avidamoeba , (edited )
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Weird feeling about this. $5-$20 flat fee sounds like a lower price than what I'd imagine donations would bring. I imagine most who would donate would give at least $5-20, and then some would subscribe monthly. The dev team is obviously gonna get funding from Eron for now which would likely be higher today than what they get in donations.

helenslunch OP ,

Yeah I dunno. I sent them $50 as soon as I came across this amazing software.

I think FUTO is trying to make FOSS sustainable by unmistakably asking for money. I'm not sure how much more effective that will be than just asking for donations externally...

avidamoeba , (edited )
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Me too, I subbed for monthly.

The one thing I can see FUTO can do is provide capital up front for developers to work which could be recouped over time as more users begin to use and pay for the software. That makes sense and in a competent, not neoliberal economy, the government might have a fund doing something like that. What I'm a bit worried about is that this might not be all Eron's up to. But again, we'll take his money when he gives it, so long as the work is open source. And we'll see where we end up in a few years. 😅

twei ,

Germany has a fund like that, GNOME just recently got a grant of about 1M Euros to improve features and provide better accessibility

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

grayjay is not foss

twei ,

The only thing I can see in their License that would make it non-free is the non-commercial redistribution part of it, which is not that bad

acockworkorange ,

Which might be there to prevent legal troubles from YouTube.

WeLoveCastingSpellz ,

it is. It prevents people from forking it an making their own versions and then distrubuting it. That is not foss,just source availible.

InnerScientist ,

It doesn't though? IANAL but as far as I can tell you can fork, modify and redistribute it as long as you provide the source code to your users.

It's AGPL-3.0 so.... https://www.tldrlegal.com/license/gnu-affero-general-public-license-v3-agpl-3-0

twei ,

That guy was talking about grayjay, a Client to follow creators on multiple platforms at the same time. Grayjay isn't licensed under AGPL, but instead it uses the FUTO Temporary License. It technically still counts as source available, but I think the NC-Part is okay to have. AGPL would be nicer though especially bc of this.

TrickDacy ,

Futo = fucked up to oblivion?

tagginator Bot ,

New Lemmy Post: Immich x FUTO Q&A (https://lemmyverse.link/lemmy.world/post/15216289)
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clmbmb ,

FUTO in Romanian sounds a lot like "fuck her"...

helenslunch OP ,

Thanks for sharing 👍

entropicshart ,

And a letter away from Futa, which has a whole other world of a meaning…

Cyber ,

... searches for "Futa" on company laptop...

kaboom36 ,

Ah yes, the Federal Unemployment Tax Act

governorkeagan ,

Curiosity got the better of me, so I searched what it means. I did come across another interesting phrase....

Futa-te cangurii

helenslunch OP ,

You're not thinking of FUPA?

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