[PVE-User] I thought Proxmox VE was free?

[Shane Hathaway]

On 10/11/2011 01:39 PM, Dietmar Maurer wrote:
>> As the previous poster questioned, how many people have actually turned away
>> from Proxmox because they also mis-understood the wording.
>>
>> Is there another reason you guys are hesitant to make the small wording change
>> on your support page?
>
> Well, seems you miss that we are a company, and we want to sell our product (support contracts).

I am well versed in the GPL and open source, but before I started using 
PVE, that terse statement on your support page made me hesitate. The 
language suggested to me that Proxmox was in fact resisting the 
GPL--that there might be some disconnect between the Proxmox engineers 
and management, and that perhaps the company intended to close up the 
source at some point.

I really hope my little company grows to the point where we can buy 
support contracts, but we have to make the switch on our own schedule, 
so it was critical for us to choose an open source solution with an 
optional support component. Before I chose PVE, I had to do a lot of 
research to confirm that I really could use PVE as open source, then buy 
support when I was ready. That statement on the support page cast a lot 
of doubt for me.

I believe you will gather more support (and, by extension, more 
customers) if you clarify that statement. As it stands, it appears to 
contradict the message you are trying to express everywhere else.

I suggest you simply change the statement from "All Proxmox VE servers 
inside your organization need a valid subscription" to "To qualify for a 
professional subscription, all servers running Proxmox VE in your 
organization need a valid subscription." That would have removed all 
doubt for me.

Also, the support page is inconsistent in the way it names the different 
support plans. I think "Proxmox VE Server Subscription" is intended to 
be the same thing as "Professional Server Subscription", but I can't be 
sure. Can you fix that as well?

Shane