>I don't mean to be harsh - but if you were to suggest people to ditch nginx, take the initiative and fork it and start doing the support.
Perhaps he doesn't have the hours/skills free to do so. People are free to complain about things or do a 'call-to-arms' about things they can't fix themselves.
>And what is the problem with writing to disk?
Performance
>I guess RAM disk is fine?
It works, but it's a hack and major technical debt to hold.
> I am not really sure what's the issue with writing to disk.
Performance. Specifically the thundering herd problem. All of his servers log to virtual disks all stored on the same SAN, which is stressing under the load.
>I still don't see any convincing argument why we should ditch Nginx.
It's a bit of a slippery slope fallacy, but the point is that a basic feature is being held hostage behind a pay-wall. It would be like MySQL requiring you to pay to any users other than the 'admin' SQL account.
Perhaps he doesn't have the hours/skills free to do so. People are free to complain about things or do a 'call-to-arms' about things they can't fix themselves.
I think in the case of open source we have far too many people who feel entitled to the work of others without any recompense already. Working on a large OS project like this is mostly a thankless task - people will complain about the problems while taking for granted all the features that just work, and they're unlikely to be raking in lots of money because of attitudes like this.
Given the volume of sales, the 3 floor building and the use of NetApp, I would have thought this company has money to pay nginx for what is a core piece of software, even if they have to negotiate a special license or change their setup. If they don't want to or can't, they can use apache, find workarounds, or even patch nginx themselves.
Issuing a call to arms over this is pretty obnoxious behaviour, because it implies the nginx people have done something wrong or antisocial in wanting to be paid for some of their work. How outrageous!
the point is that a basic feature is being held hostage behind a pay-wall. It would be like MySQL requiring you to pay to any users other than the 'admin' SQL account.
Yes, it would be like that (though this feature is more trivial and could be worked around, and is not an existing feature, so not exactly the same). That's the way companies make money when they segment their market and have an OS offering and a commercial one. Nothing wrong with that. If you don't like the rules set by the creators, don't use it; write your own software or use other software. If they had retrospectively retired features and put them into the paid version, perhaps he'd have a point, but as far as I'm aware they haven't.
He's not entitled to have the nginx guys work for free forever on his terms on their software. Ending with the exhortation 'Fork it' sums up his position perfectly - someone else should fork this software, add the features I need, and then continue to work for free for me. He's asking 'Who will pick up the mantle', because clearly it won't be him; he's not a sucker after all.
>Yes, it would be like that (though this feature is more trivial and could be worked around, and is not an existing feature, so not exactly the same). That's the way companies make money when they segment their market and have an OS offering and a commercial one. Nothing wrong with that. If you don't like the rules set by the creators, don't use it; write your own software or use other software. If they had retrospectively retired features and put them into the paid version, perhaps he'd have a point, but as far as I'm aware they haven't.
But what they have done is made a pretty basic marketing mistake. They decided to charge for something that has been 'solved' by apache and hundreds of other pieces of software many years ago. People don't want to pay for something that's not new in the field.
>Issuing a call to arms over this is pretty obnoxious behaviour, because it implies the nginx people have done something wrong or antisocial in wanting to be paid for some of their work. How outrageous!
You say that like all approaches to making money are the same and it's disingenuous. How about some document editing software that works for free for 30 days and then encrypts all of your files until you pay up? The developers just want to get paid, right? How outrageous!
>If you don't like the rules set by the creators, don't use it; write your own software or use other software.
That's what he's advocating...
>Ending with the exhortation 'Fork it' sums up his position perfectly - someone else should fork this software, add the features I need, and then continue to work for free for me. He's asking 'Who will pick up the mantle', because clearly it won't be him; he's not a sucker after all.
That's exactly what good open source foundations do. I take it you are unfamiliar with the apache web server project? What about OpenStack? Maybe Linux or Firefox? None of these projects turn to their users to squeeze money out of them to activate basic features.
>What about OpenStack? Maybe Linux or Firefox? None of these projects turn to their users to squeeze money out of them to activate basic features.
Thats disingenuous. Linux squeezes money out of users via RHEL and SUSE. Firefox straight up sells your data to Google (who in turn provides over 90% of Mozilla revenue).
Even Apache, a "good" open source foundation, houses Cassandra, which is largely contributed to by DataStax, which sells its own version of Cassandra which has "pay-only" features such as Hadoop integration without the need of HDFS.
Long story short, there are large number of OSS that function the way nginx is running things right now. You could probably throw a pebble in the OSS/Enterprise ocean and land on a project that has "pay-only" features. Unless you are willing write the solution yourself, no one in obliged to take up the mantle and fix your problems for you.
> Linux squeezes money out of users via RHEL and SUSE.
Linux is not RHEL and SUSE. You can use Linux without using RHEL and SUSE and still get all of the Linux kernel features, which is the entire point. That's exactly what makes it a good foundation. They aren't arbitrarily screwing their users out of features. There is no such thing as an 'enterprise-plus Linux Kernel'.
> Firefox straight up sells your data to Google (who in turn provides over 90% of Mozilla revenue).
This is a blatant lie that shows nothing more than your ability to troll. If you can't handle a specific search provider getting your data when you search, change your search provider.
>Even Apache, a "good" open source foundation, houses Cassandra, which is largely contributed to by DataStax, which sells its own version of Cassandra
It doesn't matter, you seem to be failing with basic logic. Cassandra may be contributed to by DataStax, but DataStax doesn't control the gate so they can't stop contributions that overlap with their product's functionality. nginx can and does stop patches that duplicate 'enterprise functionality'. See the problem?
Maybe I should have provided a source, but calling something that is easily google-able and was on the front page on HN a "blatant lie" is worrying. Why would I lie on the internet?
>Cassandra may be contributed to by DataStax, but DataStax doesn't control the gate so they can't stop contributions that overlap with their product's functionality.
Again, you should research your claims before assuming I'm lying. The project chair for Apache Cassandra is also the Co founder of DataStax - so yes, DataStax does control the gate.
No, he's not. He's advocating that someone else needs to do that work for him, so that he can benefit. He's explicitly asking other people to do the work at the end:
Who will pick up the mantle and actively develop the next game-changing FOSS web server? Fork it!
NB that statement was not - perhaps I will fork it, or perhaps I will contribute to a new FOSS web server, or should we help nginx solve this issue some other way, but a plea to someone else to do all the hard work so that he can use it for free.
You say that like all approaches to making money are the same and it's disingenuous.
That wasn't the intention or I believe the implication, the analogy above about locking user data away is absurd and unhelpful.
That's exactly what good open source foundations do. I take it you are unfamiliar with the apache web server project?
Some OSS works on the model of selling services, some works on the model of selling extra features and commercial licenses. Personally I'm agnostic as to which is best, but this is not a new or unusual development. Many companies from Ubuntu to Firefox do commercial deals and request money indirectly or directly to support their product. If you don't like those deals or disagree with the particular method used, you can use other software, but whining about it is not productive.
Perhaps he doesn't have the hours/skills free to do so. People are free to complain about things or do a 'call-to-arms' about things they can't fix themselves.
>And what is the problem with writing to disk?
Performance
>I guess RAM disk is fine?
It works, but it's a hack and major technical debt to hold.
> I am not really sure what's the issue with writing to disk.
Performance. Specifically the thundering herd problem. All of his servers log to virtual disks all stored on the same SAN, which is stressing under the load.
>I still don't see any convincing argument why we should ditch Nginx.
It's a bit of a slippery slope fallacy, but the point is that a basic feature is being held hostage behind a pay-wall. It would be like MySQL requiring you to pay to any users other than the 'admin' SQL account.