Patreon for FileBot for Linux

[rednoah]

The Patreon is community based, not money based. The first milestone is 1000 supporters, not $1000 USD in pledges per release, so at this point we're about half way there.

The $1000 post is simply a Thank You not to everyone who has pledged so far. There is no download links attached to this post and thus it is not a monetized post. It's simply an update to all the ~500 supporters we have pledged so far.

Patreon is about pledging money, not about donating. That means that your $1 pledge won't be collected until I publish new releases, and I won't work on new releases until the 1000 supporters milestone is reached. You are at no risk of loosing $1 if I don't deliver. You will loose $1 if I do deliver, which sounds like a really really really good deal to me.

Publishing new well-tested and well-supported Linux packages will take a few weeks though, so don't expect an instant release on the spot when the counter hits 1000 supporters. It'll take a while, and pledges won't be collected until I'm ready to publish something.

Let me know if anything is unclear. You'll find additional information on how Patreon works via Google.


TL;DR Since the first milestone of 1000 supporters has not been reached yet, there is no current build of FileBot for Linux. Also, no money has been collected via Patreon.

[frankw]

Just increased my pledge, filebot (cmd line) is a core part of my linux media server, and I'd love to see support continue. Not sure if it easier to have command-line only linux support, if so it might be worth considering? Cheers.

[rednoah]

Yes, but only as a temporary solution if absolutely necessary, as many Patreon supporters have pledged with the FileBot GUI program in mind.

[pavstor]

@rednoah,

Thx for the great product (I just registered on this forum to write this post but I have been using Filebot for a few years now). Filebot is an integral part of my automated home media center setup — in fact I build my entire media automation around Filebot.

With that said, I can tell you that a home media server on linux represents the majority of use cases for linux users and having a supported CLI-only linux version would satisfy most of your linux users.

So, if a supported CLI-only Filebot version could be made available for the linux platform, that would be a great achievement. I'm sure, most linux users are more than happy to pay — I understand your problem, however, is the lack of solid monetization/distribution mechanism.

Just a suggestion (I don't know how painful it is to implement and maintain): why not implement a license key mechanism? You get a direct payment (say via PayPal) and provide a unique license key to the user. I'm sure there are platforms out there that can support the transaction side of this.

[rednoah]

Just a suggestion (I don't know how painful it is to implement and maintain): why not implement a license key mechanism? You get a direct payment (say via PayPal) and provide a unique license key to the user. I'm sure there are platforms out there that can support the transaction side of this.

Accepting PayPal and responding to webhooks is easy. Licensing is non-trivial and hard, especially if you think about in detail it for a bit.

➔ https://hackernoon.com/finding-issues-a ... e6b7ed823e
➔ https://keygen.sh/

It might be easier (and more cost-effective) to get a bit of funding via Patreon, than to spend large amounts of time and effort to make non-store licensing work. Oddly enough, selling FileBot to Windows 7/8 users would be the prime motivator financially speaking, and not Linux users.

keygen.sh seems to be the only remotely viable service that could help me out here, but it's barely a year old, run by one guy, and if the service goes down for some reason (companies do fail, especially young ones) then me and everyone who purchased FileBot will be very unhappy.

Pricing is reasonable assuming constant sales, but if sales go down after a few years, and monthly fees go up with total number of sales, then I don't like the trajectory of that. Then again, Microsoft / Apple take 30% right out of the box, so nothing is free there.

[soulinferno]

Just want to ask if it's allowed to make 2 Patreon Accounts?

If yes I would recommend all patrons to do this then we reach our goal really fast

[rednoah]

Preferably not. That would defeat the point of having everyone chip in a little bit.

[rednoah]

With that said, I can tell you that a home media server on linux represents the majority of use cases for linux users and having a supported CLI-only linux version would satisfy most of your linux users.

So, if a supported CLI-only Filebot version could be made available for the linux platform, that would be a great achievement. I'm sure, most linux users are more than happy to pay — I understand your problem, however, is the lack of solid monetization/distribution mechanism.

Just a suggestion (I don't know how painful it is to implement and maintain): why not implement a license key mechanism? You get a direct payment (say via PayPal) and provide a unique license key to the user. I'm sure there are platforms out there that can support the transaction side of this.

FileBot 4.8.2 is available as alpha / beta and both GUI and CLI should work on most Linux systems (anything that can run Java 8) but the GUI has only been tested on Ubuntu and requires Java 10:
https://get.filebot.net/filebot/FileBot_4.8.2/

The DEB package includes the latest Oracle JRE 10 and is only available for amd64. You might need to install additional transitive dependencies via apt.

The portable Linux package does not include a JRE but only requires Java 8 so it should be easy to make it work on at least amd64 / armv7 / aarch64 devices. Maybe even armv5 and PPC if you can still some of the previously released Java 8 Embedded binaries.

[orytek]

I installed the latest deb beta 4.8.2 on Ubuntu 16 and when I run a cli script I get errors.
I have no problem with 4.7.9 but just the latest 4.8.2
I've tried it with both Java 8 and 10 as default but no luck.

Code: Select all

Fetch failed: http://app.filebot.net/api/v4/script/fn.jar.xz
java.io.IOException: Response data is null: http://app.filebot.net/api/v4/script/fn.jar.xz => http://app.filebot.net/api/v4/script/fn.jar.xz
	at net.filebot.CachedResource.lambda$get$1(CachedResource.java:96)
	at net.filebot.Cache.computeIf(Cache.java:90)
	at net.filebot.CachedResource.get(CachedResource.java:82)
	at net.filebot.MemoizedResource.get(Resource.java:36)
	at net.filebot.cli.ScriptBundle.getScript(ScriptBundle.java:32)
	at net.filebot.cli.ScriptShell.runScript(ScriptShell.java:74)
	at net.filebot.cli.ArgumentProcessor.runScript(ArgumentProcessor.java:148)
	at net.filebot.cli.ArgumentProcessor.run(ArgumentProcessor.java:36)
	at net.filebot.Main.main(Main.java:126)

[rednoah]

Sorry, something went wrong in the previous build. Please try the 30-Jun-2018 10:44 (or newer) package. You may need to press CTRL+R to reload the page.

[orytek]

Thank you.
Works great now and licensing it was easy.

[abmoraz]

Do you still have a paypal account for donations? I sent some in the past and Patreon has bitten me before with it's monthly auto-draft. I'd rather just send you $20 again for the linux build. (So far I've bought it on 2 platforms several years back via paypal and the Ubuntu Store and made donations in the past, but it's been a while since my last one).

If not, I'll suck it up and do a Patreon for one release (no post card is necessary), then cancel until next release.

Thanks for your hard work.

Ps. Is there a way to transfer my license from the old Ubuntu Store to 4.8.2? I grabbed it to try out from the link above, but it's telling me I need a license.

pps. nevermind. I found this post: viewtopic.php?f=11&t=5989&p=34350&hilit=license#p34350 . I'll revert back to 4.7.9 until you're licensing process is released for Linux.

[rednoah]

You can already purchase a license the latest [BETA] FileBot 4.8.2 (with support for all platforms with cross-platform license system) which is available for all platforms.

Just click the button or follow the link when FileBot is asking for a license to purchase a license:


As this has been released only yesterday, early feedback would be appreciated.



EDIT:

Unfortunately, transferring a license from any of the official platform stores and converting it to a FileBot Universal License is not supported.

[abmoraz]

Purchased. Keep up the good work!

Early feedback:
- Not sure what Paddle is, but they don't accept Discover Card. I had to find my old Paypal account (first time used in close to a decade) and add my new card there.
- I like that Paddle appears opt-out rather than opt-in, but the old cynic in me bets that it's not going to matter and I'm going to get junk from them anyways, so I used all fake information. I'm not sure why my information is needed at all to get a license, especially one that expires annually. I could understand if it was a "license in perpetuity" so that if it was lost, I could claim it back. Especially in these new times of privacy concerns, asking for extra info seems ... shady? Not sure if that's the correct word, but it just feels "icky".

As far as the the actual license and 4.8.2, everything was smooth and it seems to be working fine.

[rednoah]

Thanks for the feedback. What information specifically did you have to enter that you thought was unnecessary? I tried with PayPal and it only asked for my email (necessary to send you a license) (and probably got all the rest like name and region (necessary for TAX) from PayPal).

[abmoraz]

Thanks for the feedback. What information specifically did you have to enter that you thought was unnecessary? I tried with PayPal and it only asked for my email (necessary to send you a license) (and probably got all the rest like name and region (necessary for TAX) from PayPal).

It was my name and zip code (region). I guess that might just be a difference in country or culture. Here, we don't pay tax when buying things online, but instead are responsible for reporting it ourselves (or paying a flat fee based on our income if we didn't keep track of it) at the end of the year.