Re: [LUG] [Maybe OT] Plex Media Server

I'm probably doing Plex a dis-service but after a play last year I have it filed very firmly under "Too shiny for its own good" and used minidlna, but then ended up not actually needing either.

I've spent a lot of time playing with various of these big-budget projects like this (and Spiceworks, and lots of others). They are very very bling and quite impressive in their way, but I always seem to hit some major roadblock where I want to do Thing A) and project has decided that only Thing B) is going to be allowed. So I revert to low-budget, no-frills alternatives that just work.

That, or they change the goalposts and specs just after I've got it nicely set up.

I appear to be heading for a side-rant here, but hey ho, let's go with it.

What triggered it was your mention of having to sign up for a cloud service, or to download, or to register before Shiny-Gizzmo will work. I really don't like this. I use linux for many reasons, but one of the big ones is that I like free software. I like to be able to get it on my terms and I don't like handing over my personal information in order to use it. When you do that, it's not unreasonable to be cynical and assume your information is going to be used, and it's most likely it'll be used to the benefit of "Them" and not for "Me". It could be sold, it could be stolen, it could be analysed and linked with other bits of information and They know more about me than my wife does.

That Big-Shiny-Thing-Monetizing-Model and Linux, don't fit well in my head. Obviously Linux means different things to different people, and with Plex, like a dozen other very marketable Linux projects (including Ubuntu and Mint) suggest to me linux means $$$ to some.

I'm not naive. I know money needs to be made; there is a finite limit to the goodwill of people who donate time, skill, servers and bandwidth for the linux brethren and big truly opensource projects often hit a wall due to time, lack of people, hosting costs or just plain politics, but it's true.

I sound like an idealistic hippy, but that "Freeness" is something that I appreciate hugely about linux, and Plex doesn't feel right.

(Also, it's very fat, slow and surprisingly complicated to configure. I had minidlna doing what little I wanted in 5 minutes. Plex failed to achieve what I wanted within an hour of poking and used a lot of resources in the process)