Volker Theile is well known for his work on FreeNAS. But at one point, he decided to give up on it and to restart from scratch but this time based on Debian (instead of FreeBSD). OpenMediaVault is the name of this new Debian based product.

Here’s how he defines the project:

OpenMediaVault is the next generation network attached storage (NAS) solution based on Debian Linux. It contains services like SSH, (S)FTP, SMB/CIFS, DAAP media server, RSync, BitTorrent client and many more. Thanks to the modular design of the framework it can be enhanced via plugins.

OpenMediaVault is primarily designed to be used in home environments or small home offices, but is not limited to those scenarios. It is a simple and easy to use out-of-the-box solution that will allow everyone to install and administrate a Network Attached Storage without deeper knowledge.

Even though all the work was private, he managed to attract an important following, and I must say that I was looking forward to this project. He regularly blogged on his progress, sharing some good-looking video of the resulting product (example here).

The first public release (Version 0.2, codenamed Ix) happened on October 17th. I have yet to try it but I took a look on the website. As a Debian developer, I was keen on seeing the source code and how the project was managed.

The GPLv3 license is presented as an important feature and I was expecting a well-managed open source project. The fact that it was a private one-man project up to now did not bother me, we’re quite used to the “scratch your itch” kind of start for free software projects.

Enough to say is that I have been very disappointed. First you come across a contributor agreement, it’s frowned upon by many free software developers. But why not, maybe he bought the argument of Mark Shuttleworth and wants to give it a try.

But then I looked at the subversion repository, it’s obvious that it’s just a dumping ground of files that are managed somewhere else in another repository. A bit like Android which is not developed in the open but released as a whole from time to time.

But the worst was yet to be found on the licensing page:

Beside being freely available for personal end-users, System Builders and System Integrators, in general Installers, require a commercial license for OpenMediaVault.

Besides the fact that I’m still not sure what this means, I would like to know how he reconciles this requirement with the terms of the GPLv3.

It’s a shame that a so promising project ends up being a disaster from a free software perspective.

Have you tried OpenMediaVault already? If yes, I’d be glad to read your thoughts in the comments.