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Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

thehelm.com

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Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#91

Post by movedx »

notimetorelax wrote: post #79
giantg2 wrote: post #74

Seems pretty cool. A little pricey and maybe even overpowered. The biggest thing that holds me back from hosting my own server is probably lack of static IP and the time/cognitive overhead of maintenance/security.

Have been hosting home servers behind DynamicDNS for 5 years now. Have never had any issues because of it. E.g. Namecheap supports the protocol - no need for extra subscription.

But are you hosting your own emails? That's the important thing here. Everything else is fine, but hosting and operating a custom email service is hard if you want to also reach other people's inboxes.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#92

Post by mixedCase »

dmurray wrote: post #68
codetrotter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html It’s perfectly ok to charge for GPL software. Providing the source on a physical medium for a price is reasonable because no one should be forced to run a digital distribution setup and infrastructure just because they build software that derives from GPL pieces. Their customers have a right to receive a copy of the source. But the company is not obliged to host an onli…

Do the customers have the right to republish the source? Under the GPL (I checked GPLv3) I don't think they do, but this section (my emphasis) is unclear to me: > You may convey a covered work in object code form under the terms of sections 4 and 5, provided that you also convey the machine-readable Corresponding Source under the terms of this License , in one of these ways... Is "under the terms of this License" a c…

> Do the customers have the right to republish the source?

The GPL definitely allows you this. What you are given is code that is as GPL as the one they originally got, which covers free distribution. This is the main mechanism that serves the purpose of the GPL.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#93

Post by kortilla »

codetrotter wrote: post #30
remram wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems that Nextcloud, Postfix, and Strongswan are copyleft. > You may obtain the complete corresponding source code from us for a period of three years after our last shipment of this product by sending a money order or check for $5 to: Without being illegal this is rather hostile. But then again they are selling subscriptions to open-source software so I expected something shady.

See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html It’s perfectly ok to charge for GPL software. Providing the source on a physical medium for a price is reasonable because no one should be forced to run a digital distribution setup and infrastructure just because they build software that derives from GPL pieces. Their customers have a right to receive a copy of the source. But the company is not obliged to host an onli…

Then why isn’t it okay for companies to just hide behind a “nominal legal fee” of $100k to release the source?

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#94

Post by kortilla »

sneak wrote: post #66
stefan_ wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So the first thing this "personal server that lives where you do" does is spin up some AWS instance? No thank you.

If the TLS is terminated on the device and all it's using AWS for is a static ip and inbound port for email, that seems pretty harmless.

Seems like a stupid design decision at that point to have a dedicated instance per user. For a pass-through they could multiplex tens of thousands of customers easily onto a single instance.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#95

Post by VanTheBrand »

kortilla wrote: post #93
codetrotter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html It’s perfectly ok to charge for GPL software. Providing the source on a physical medium for a price is reasonable because no one should be forced to run a digital distribution setup and infrastructure just because they build software that derives from GPL pieces. Their customers have a right to receive a copy of the source. But the company is not obliged to host an onli…

Then why isn’t it okay for companies to just hide behind a “nominal legal fee” of $100k to release the source?

Because that’s baldly unreasonable

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#96

Post by detaro »

kortilla wrote: post #93
codetrotter wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/selling.html It’s perfectly ok to charge for GPL software. Providing the source on a physical medium for a price is reasonable because no one should be forced to run a digital distribution setup and infrastructure just because they build software that derives from GPL pieces. Their customers have a right to receive a copy of the source. But the company is not obliged to host an onli…

Then why isn’t it okay for companies to just hide behind a “nominal legal fee” of $100k to release the source?

Because the GPL forbids that.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#97

Post by gsreenivas »

digitalsushi wrote: post #9

If I could reliably transfer my gmail legacy freebie grandfather thing account without it taking 7 to 11 days of API rate limited transfer at 100% luck, I would get my email out of there. Alas.

A workaround is to set up a desktop email client - allow it to fully sync, then use the desktop email client to export your email and import to another account.

Google rate limiting and restricting access to your own data is pretty awful. They are similarly terrible about OAuth permissions for 3rd parties - some companies are allowed to export data on behalf of customers while others are not.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#98

Post by a3n »

gsreenivas wrote: post #58
noncoml wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love your idea and execution. But requiring yearly subscription is defeating the purpose of "Break away from big tech" as I am now tied to your company instead of big tech. What's the point in this?

You can see elsewhere where I discuss what the subscription provides. I think there's a huge difference between subscribing to companies that share customer values around privacy and security vs being at the mercy of companies looking to extract as much value from your data as possible.

Speaking cynically and pessimistically, when it's your planned exit and who are your potential buyers?

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#99

Post by solarkraft »

gsreenivas wrote: post #85
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the subscription mandatory. What about the minority of users who do have a static IP address. Should all users be given an option to arrange their own static IP address as well as to subscribe to a pre-packaged deal. They might be able to get a better price than $99/yr, or better terms. Whats to lose by having options. These are honest questions because I have often thought about a similar project where a static I…

We might consider adding support in the future - we're not philosophically against it, but it is more work to develop and support.

It's honestly a red flag.

Re: Helm is a personal server that lives where you do

#100

Post by 71a54xd »

MonadIsPronad wrote: post #18
71a54xd wrote: post #7

No thanks, this wreaks of a monthly subscription I don't want that would result in unsupported buggy "hardware" in 10 years guaranteed. I'll keep my ZFS server with a text file reminding me how I configured it for now (since I usually forget after a few months)!

"reeks" was the word you wanted, I think

Thank you kind stranger ;)
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