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They abandoned documentation (edit: for the open source codebase) a couple of weeks ago - that seems more significant. From their Slack on Oct 10: "The docume

They abandoned documentation (edit: for the open source codebase) a couple of weeks ago - that seems more significant. From their Slack on Oct 10: "The documentation sites at docs.min.io/community have been pulled of this morning and will redirect to the equivalent AIStor documentation where possible". [emphasis mine] The minio/docs repository hasn't been updated in 2 weeks now, and the implication is that isn't going to be. Even when I set up a minio cluster this February, it was both impressively easy and hard in a few small aspects. The most crucial installation tips - around 100Gb networking, Linux kernel tunables and fault-finding - were hung off comments on their github, talking about files that were deleted from the repository years ago. I've built a cluster for a client that's being expanded to ≈100PB this year. The price of support comes in at at slightly less than the equivalent amount of S3 storage (not including the actual hosting costs!). The value of it just isn't that high to my client - so I guess we're just coasting on what we can get now, and will have to see what real community might form around the source. I'm not a free software die-hard so I'm grateful for the work minio have put into the world, and the business it's enabling. But it seems super-clear they're stopping those contributions, and I'd bet the final open source release will happen in the next year. If anyone else is hosting with minio & can't afford the support either :) please drop me a line and maybe we can get something going.

Joker_vD 1y ago
Nah, it's fine. It's Open Source, you can document it yourself if you need to! But there is no obligation from the MinIO authors to provide it, you're not entitled to it.
- MrDarcy 1y ago
  It sounds like you’re being sarcastic but what you say is correct and true.
  - danudey 1y ago
    It can be correct and true while at the same time being bad-faith and user-hostile.
    - MrDarcy 1y ago
      I’m a firm believer in open source and have decades of experience with it as an active community member. There are two sides to this coin and tension in between. On the one side license change rug pulls are annoying and deserve negative consequences. On the other side, open source users are often far too entitled and demanding, contributing little and taking much. At the end of the day the license terms are clear and users would do well to expect no more than the license says they’re entitled to expect. Maybe then everyone can start being pleasantly surprised by each other’s behavior instead of both sides being disappointed by the other.
gr4vityWall 1y ago
That does sound much worse than hiding the pre-built images from users. I hope that documentation is archived. There's probably some benefit in documenting those installation tips elsewhere besides Github comments.
- empyrrhicist 1y ago
  I'm sure it's been scraped to be regurgitated by a whole slew of LLMs.
- knowitnone3 1y ago
  old documentation doesn't help when the software changes
- soraminazuki 1y ago
  Yeah, running binaries of varying qualities taken from all sorts of places is a bad idea anyways. Distro packages are generally more consistent or even running "go build" yourself is probably better in this case. But pulling existing documentation is a whole different matter. One can argue that they don't have an obligation to maintain the docs, though it would effectively make continued use of newer versions untenable. But pulling existing ones is an unnecessary rug pull when it doesn't cost anything to keep it online. It's a big middle finger to open source.
jamespo 1y ago
With 100PB clusters being built and not a cent going to them, you can see why minio has gone this route. I wonder if they will be "valkeyed"? Not by AWS presumably.
- SteveNuts 1y ago
  > I wonder if they will be "valkeyed"? Not by AWS presumably Almost certainly not, due to the AGPL license. I know Nutanix got into hot water about distributing Minio so I don't think any big shop will fork it.
  - _cenw 1y ago
    Nuantrix distributed a version that was still Apache licensed and merely failed to disclose they had made changes. This is after MinIO asserted that Weka had also stolen their AGPL-licensed code, showing that they extracted binaries from the distribution. They forgot that that 3-month old (unmodified) version was still Apache licensed though. MinIO generally don't seem to consult lawyers often. They haven't even set up copyright assignment / CLA immediately after switching the license, so technically they are also incapable of selling AGPL license exceptions just like everyone else. I've done my best to keep MinIO away from most infra I manage, not because of legal concerns but because it was kind of obvious they'd eventually go full scorched earth and either drop images or the source code distribution all together. Maybe now we can all move on to a fork, or SeaweedFS, or Ceph, or literally anything else.
    - chupasaurus 1y ago
      > showing that they extracted binaries from the distribution Funnily enough, such action is outside of their paid product's EULA.
    - msarrel 1y ago
      They don't consult lawyers. The CEO husband and wife team get really angry and fire off threatening letters, but I've never seen them consult a lawyer before sending a letter like that or accusing a company of violating a license publicly.
Kevinmetaba 1y ago
During an upgrade, I discovered that the console had been removed without any prior notice. MinIO really pissed me off. Over a month ago, I started looking for a MinIO alternative and found RustFS. I've been testing RustFS for over a month now, and the product continues to improve, with the community fixing bugs very quickly. I hope YC will invest in this company.
- nunez 1y ago
  At the same time, I'm concerned that a YC investment means more of the same, eventually: open-source until it's no longer fiscally prudent.
  - Kevinmetaba 1y ago
    Is open source and making money in conflict? If they do a good job, I am willing to pay.
    - throwway120385 1y ago
      Not necessarily, but if there's a cost to providing free support to the community like official container images, then it will get cut. People comment that it's "free" to provide these things through Github, but it actually has a cost to the maintainers in time, and it's frankly an easy business decision to stop doing that at times in favor of roadmap work that produces business value. What I'm learning from this is to provide basically zero support from the outset and let it grow organically if I ever build a business on an open source product. As soon as you stop supporting anything for free someone feels entitled to it.
      - tankenmate 1y ago
        "but if there's a cost to providing free support to the community like official container images, then it will get cut.", but here's the kicker, supporting creating docker images when you're on github is close to negligible as to be paper thin.
    - deleted 1y ago
tw04 1y ago
>The price of support comes in at at slightly less than the equivalent amount of S3 storage That's absurd. I would be running to NetApp and Dell for competitive object storage quotes then. Haven't done pricing on either one recently but at least a few years ago they were roughly half the price of S3 all in (including hosting costs).
- votepaunchy 1y ago
  > half the price of S3 No one other than hobbyists is paying full price on AWS.
  - stackedinserter 1y ago
    How to not pay full price on AWS? We pay $10K+ per month and nobody gives us any discount.
    - BozeWolf 1y ago
      To be fair, for aws that is hobbyist numbers. We (400 people data company) pay 10 times that amount. Let alone big enterprises. We do get discount, but it wont make it cheap.
      - bargle0 1y ago
        What kind of hobby do you have where you’re spending $10k/month?
        m00x 1y ago
        I see you've never heard of Warhammer 40k
        trenchpilgrim 1y ago
        I see you haven't heard of SLA printers
chipotle_coyote 1y ago
Well, gosh. Maybe I’m glad I didn’t get that documentation job with MinIO after all.
kebabfrites 1y ago
Unrelated but i find it funny that the Microsoft logo on the Install on Windows section is upside down on the redirected link docs.min.io/enterprise/aistor-object-store/

Joker_vD 1y ago

Nah, it's fine. It's Open Source, you can document it yourself if you need to! But there is no obligation from the MinIO authors to provide it, you're not entitled to it.

MrDarcy 1y ago
It sounds like you’re being sarcastic but what you say is correct and true.
- danudey 1y ago
  It can be correct and true while at the same time being bad-faith and user-hostile.
  - MrDarcy 1y ago
    I’m a firm believer in open source and have decades of experience with it as an active community member. There are two sides to this coin and tension in between. On the one side license change rug pulls are annoying and deserve negative consequences. On the other side, open source users are often far too entitled and demanding, contributing little and taking much. At the end of the day the license terms are clear and users would do well to expect no more than the license says they’re entitled to expect. Maybe then everyone can start being pleasantly surprised by each other’s behavior instead of both sides being disappointed by the other.

gr4vityWall 1y ago

That does sound much worse than hiding the pre-built images from users. I hope that documentation is archived. There's probably some benefit in documenting those installation tips elsewhere besides Github comments.

empyrrhicist 1y ago
I'm sure it's been scraped to be regurgitated by a whole slew of LLMs.
knowitnone3 1y ago
old documentation doesn't help when the software changes
soraminazuki 1y ago
Yeah, running binaries of varying qualities taken from all sorts of places is a bad idea anyways. Distro packages are generally more consistent or even running "go build" yourself is probably better in this case. But pulling existing documentation is a whole different matter. One can argue that they don't have an obligation to maintain the docs, though it would effectively make continued use of newer versions untenable. But pulling existing ones is an unnecessary rug pull when it doesn't cost anything to keep it online. It's a big middle finger to open source.

jamespo 1y ago

With 100PB clusters being built and not a cent going to them, you can see why minio has gone this route. I wonder if they will be "valkeyed"? Not by AWS presumably.

SteveNuts 1y ago
> I wonder if they will be "valkeyed"? Not by AWS presumably Almost certainly not, due to the AGPL license. I know Nutanix got into hot water about distributing Minio so I don't think any big shop will fork it.
- _cenw 1y ago
  Nuantrix distributed a version that was still Apache licensed and merely failed to disclose they had made changes. This is after MinIO asserted that Weka had also stolen their AGPL-licensed code, showing that they extracted binaries from the distribution. They forgot that that 3-month old (unmodified) version was still Apache licensed though. MinIO generally don't seem to consult lawyers often. They haven't even set up copyright assignment / CLA immediately after switching the license, so technically they are also incapable of selling AGPL license exceptions just like everyone else. I've done my best to keep MinIO away from most infra I manage, not because of legal concerns but because it was kind of obvious they'd eventually go full scorched earth and either drop images or the source code distribution all together. Maybe now we can all move on to a fork, or SeaweedFS, or Ceph, or literally anything else.
  - chupasaurus 1y ago
    > showing that they extracted binaries from the distribution Funnily enough, such action is outside of their paid product's EULA.
  - msarrel 1y ago
    They don't consult lawyers. The CEO husband and wife team get really angry and fire off threatening letters, but I've never seen them consult a lawyer before sending a letter like that or accusing a company of violating a license publicly.

Kevinmetaba 1y ago

During an upgrade, I discovered that the console had been removed without any prior notice. MinIO really pissed me off. Over a month ago, I started looking for a MinIO alternative and found RustFS. I've been testing RustFS for over a month now, and the product continues to improve, with the community fixing bugs very quickly. I hope YC will invest in this company.

nunez 1y ago
At the same time, I'm concerned that a YC investment means more of the same, eventually: open-source until it's no longer fiscally prudent.
- Kevinmetaba 1y ago
  Is open source and making money in conflict? If they do a good job, I am willing to pay.
  - throwway120385 1y ago
    Not necessarily, but if there's a cost to providing free support to the community like official container images, then it will get cut. People comment that it's "free" to provide these things through Github, but it actually has a cost to the maintainers in time, and it's frankly an easy business decision to stop doing that at times in favor of roadmap work that produces business value. What I'm learning from this is to provide basically zero support from the outset and let it grow organically if I ever build a business on an open source product. As soon as you stop supporting anything for free someone feels entitled to it.
    - tankenmate 1y ago
      "but if there's a cost to providing free support to the community like official container images, then it will get cut.", but here's the kicker, supporting creating docker images when you're on github is close to negligible as to be paper thin.
  - deleted 1y ago

tw04 1y ago

>The price of support comes in at at slightly less than the equivalent amount of S3 storage That's absurd. I would be running to NetApp and Dell for competitive object storage quotes then. Haven't done pricing on either one recently but at least a few years ago they were roughly half the price of S3 all in (including hosting costs).

votepaunchy 1y ago
> half the price of S3 No one other than hobbyists is paying full price on AWS.
- stackedinserter 1y ago
  How to not pay full price on AWS? We pay $10K+ per month and nobody gives us any discount.
  - BozeWolf 1y ago
    To be fair, for aws that is hobbyist numbers. We (400 people data company) pay 10 times that amount. Let alone big enterprises. We do get discount, but it wont make it cheap.
    - bargle0 1y ago
      What kind of hobby do you have where you’re spending $10k/month?
      - m00x 1y ago
        I see you've never heard of Warhammer 40k
        trenchpilgrim 1y ago
        I see you haven't heard of SLA printers

chipotle_coyote 1y ago

Well, gosh. Maybe I’m glad I didn’t get that documentation job with MinIO after all.

kebabfrites 1y ago

Unrelated but i find it funny that the Microsoft logo on the Install on Windows section is upside down on the redirected link docs.min.io/enterprise/aistor-object-store/