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This. From the article: >I don’t blame NGINX for wanting money in exchange for what is admittedly amazing software. I just don’t want any part of it. Why not?

This. From the article: >I don’t blame NGINX for wanting money in exchange for what is admittedly amazing software. I just don’t want any part of it. Why not? You're using this awesome software whose value you appreciate and which is, you admit, open source. It's just not convenient enough for you. So why can't you pony up the money for your huge, high-traffic website?

jesalas 13y ago
It's pretty simple actually: We don't have an HTTP server software budget. The expectation is that the tech team will choose the right tools for the job and ask for paid tools when we need them (eg. New Relic). NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  > NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost. Then why the angst? This just makes me more confused about what your argument is.
  - makomk 13y ago
    What angst? That post reads more like a warning to others to me - after all, if they'd been aware of this issue from the start, they could've just used Apache from the beginning and avoided the hassle of having to migrate.
  - ars_technician 13y ago
    It's a sad reason to have to drop a piece of software and learn the config management of another. logging, really? Perhaps in the next version it will be free for up to 20 concurrent connections and then $1 for each one after that.
- ternaryoperator 13y ago
  >NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost. From the post: >admittedly amazing software It sounds, honestly, like you're never going to pay for OSS. That's fine if that's the way you want to do things, but to then write a post entitled "We should ditch NGINX" seems way over the top.
  - jesalas 13y ago
    Why's it over the top for my company to ditch NGINX because it's missing a feature that Apache httpd provides?
    - _ikke_ 13y ago
      Because you suggest everyone else should too.
    - fit2rule 13y ago
      Because you depend on a tool that you're not willing to pay for .. is it so difficult to see that you are being viewed as a bit of a scrooge, given that you will profit greatly from software you don't own and haven't paid for .. ?
      - ars_technician 13y ago
        First, there is no proof of how much profit comes from nginx in a stack with PHP so you can drop the 'profit greatly' line. Second, the entire point of open source software and the FOSS movement is that you shouldn't be extorted for functionality. Do you harass people that file bug reports or submit requests for features to the Linux Kernel for not paying?
        fit2rule 13y ago
        Are you or are you not running a business with FOSS? It was Free: so any USE of the software that you get out of it, was profitable. What part of "this is free, so anything you do with it is profitable" do you not agree with? Second: extortion, really? Thats what you're calling this, in the same breath as admitting that you won't/can't/are unwilling to pay for software that is a key part of the production line?
- CornishPasty 13y ago
  > NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost. So use Apache or any other HTTPD. Problem solved.
- jabbrwcky 13y ago
  If nginx has no features that set it off feom other servers you could simply switch to Apache which has the syslog feature. But for some reason you do not seem to do this, or am I mistaken?
Karunamon 13y ago
I can sympathize with this: >Yep, they took a feature that Apache httpd has had literally forever and put it behind a pay wall. Charging for support is one thing, but this seems like it should be a basic feature. And if I were running a server farm on FOSS software and then realized I'd need to cough up ($1350 * ~100) around $135k for the ability to disable obnoxious behavior, because the corporation arbitrarily decided that this particular feature (that most every other HTTP daemon worth a crap has had for ages) was the one that they're going to require you to pay for, I'd be a bit scandalized too, probably enough to write a blog post about how much it annoyed me.
- jacques_chester 13y ago
  I doubt it was an arbitrary decision. I think it was probably made carefully.
- icambron 13y ago
  It's perfectly reasonable to cringe at a $135K price tag. But if that's so onerous, why not spend a day compiling the source and setting it up for distribution on your servers? The answer is that you (or at least the hypothetical you) feel entitled to this software packaged how you want it with the features you want. If you want to use Apache, use Apache. That's totally your right. Or you can fork NGINX and do whatever you want. It's even got a BSDish license to make that easy. You could even use the last version of the software that baked this feature into the standard distro. But you're using the official NGINX distro for a reason, and I don't see why the people who make it shouldn't demand a bunch of money for whatever that reason is. To be clear, it's perfectly fine to say, "I don't think this is a good feature to put behind the paywall." I'm just balking at the whiny and entitled tone of the original post. "How dare they ask me to pay for the things I want!" If I were trying to monetize an open source project, per Jacques's comment above, this is exactly the kind of high-scale feature I'd target for that.
  - ars_technician 13y ago
    >To be clear, it's perfectly fine to say, "I don't think this is a good feature to put behind the paywall." I'm just balking at the whiny and entitled tone of the original post. "How dare they ask me to pay for the things I want!" If I were trying to monetize an open source project, per Jacques's comment above, this is exactly the kind of high-scale feature I'd target for that. And you would be an anchor dragging the project down. You aren't considering the angle of external contributors. As someone who submits patches to open source projects, I would be pretty damn pissed if the project I spent hours/days/weeks learning the architecture of pulled some shit like this. Especially if they rejected a patch because the feature in the patch was too 'useful'. Disgusting. How long do you think you will keep getting external contributors when they can't even use the full software and are afraid to put the work into patches because they might conflict with the 'enterprise offering'? If you open source something and allow external contributors, you are going to receive this entitled tone when you pull these shenanigans.

jesalas 13y ago

It's pretty simple actually: We don't have an HTTP server software budget. The expectation is that the tech team will choose the right tools for the job and ask for paid tools when we need them (eg. New Relic). NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost.

jacques_chester 13y ago
> NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost. Then why the angst? This just makes me more confused about what your argument is.
- makomk 13y ago
  What angst? That post reads more like a warning to others to me - after all, if they'd been aware of this issue from the start, they could've just used Apache from the beginning and avoided the hassle of having to migrate.
- ars_technician 13y ago
  It's a sad reason to have to drop a piece of software and learn the config management of another. logging, really? Perhaps in the next version it will be free for up to 20 concurrent connections and then $1 for each one after that.
ternaryoperator 13y ago
>NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost. From the post: >admittedly amazing software It sounds, honestly, like you're never going to pay for OSS. That's fine if that's the way you want to do things, but to then write a post entitled "We should ditch NGINX" seems way over the top.
- jesalas 13y ago
  Why's it over the top for my company to ditch NGINX because it's missing a feature that Apache httpd provides?
  - _ikke_ 13y ago
    Because you suggest everyone else should too.
  - fit2rule 13y ago
    Because you depend on a tool that you're not willing to pay for .. is it so difficult to see that you are being viewed as a bit of a scrooge, given that you will profit greatly from software you don't own and haven't paid for .. ?
    - ars_technician 13y ago
      First, there is no proof of how much profit comes from nginx in a stack with PHP so you can drop the 'profit greatly' line. Second, the entire point of open source software and the FOSS movement is that you shouldn't be extorted for functionality. Do you harass people that file bug reports or submit requests for features to the Linux Kernel for not paying?
      - fit2rule 13y ago
        Are you or are you not running a business with FOSS? It was Free: so any USE of the software that you get out of it, was profitable. What part of "this is free, so anything you do with it is profitable" do you not agree with? Second: extortion, really? Thats what you're calling this, in the same breath as admitting that you won't/can't/are unwilling to pay for software that is a key part of the production line?
CornishPasty 13y ago
> NGINX doesn't differentiate enough from the other HTTP servers out there to justify the cost. So use Apache or any other HTTPD. Problem solved.
jabbrwcky 13y ago
If nginx has no features that set it off feom other servers you could simply switch to Apache which has the syslog feature. But for some reason you do not seem to do this, or am I mistaken?

Karunamon 13y ago

I can sympathize with this: >Yep, they took a feature that Apache httpd has had literally forever and put it behind a pay wall. Charging for support is one thing, but this seems like it should be a basic feature. And if I were running a server farm on FOSS software and then realized I'd need to cough up ($1350 * ~100) around $135k for the ability to disable obnoxious behavior, because the corporation arbitrarily decided that this particular feature (that most every other HTTP daemon worth a crap has had for ages) was the one that they're going to require you to pay for, I'd be a bit scandalized too, probably enough to write a blog post about how much it annoyed me.

jacques_chester 13y ago
I doubt it was an arbitrary decision. I think it was probably made carefully.
icambron 13y ago
It's perfectly reasonable to cringe at a $135K price tag. But if that's so onerous, why not spend a day compiling the source and setting it up for distribution on your servers? The answer is that you (or at least the hypothetical you) feel entitled to this software packaged how you want it with the features you want. If you want to use Apache, use Apache. That's totally your right. Or you can fork NGINX and do whatever you want. It's even got a BSDish license to make that easy. You could even use the last version of the software that baked this feature into the standard distro. But you're using the official NGINX distro for a reason, and I don't see why the people who make it shouldn't demand a bunch of money for whatever that reason is. To be clear, it's perfectly fine to say, "I don't think this is a good feature to put behind the paywall." I'm just balking at the whiny and entitled tone of the original post. "How dare they ask me to pay for the things I want!" If I were trying to monetize an open source project, per Jacques's comment above, this is exactly the kind of high-scale feature I'd target for that.
- ars_technician 13y ago
  >To be clear, it's perfectly fine to say, "I don't think this is a good feature to put behind the paywall." I'm just balking at the whiny and entitled tone of the original post. "How dare they ask me to pay for the things I want!" If I were trying to monetize an open source project, per Jacques's comment above, this is exactly the kind of high-scale feature I'd target for that. And you would be an anchor dragging the project down. You aren't considering the angle of external contributors. As someone who submits patches to open source projects, I would be pretty damn pissed if the project I spent hours/days/weeks learning the architecture of pulled some shit like this. Especially if they rejected a patch because the feature in the patch was too 'useful'. Disgusting. How long do you think you will keep getting external contributors when they can't even use the full software and are afraid to put the work into patches because they might conflict with the 'enterprise offering'? If you open source something and allow external contributors, you are going to receive this entitled tone when you pull these shenanigans.