You could make use of openHABian. It doesn’t cover all platforms but the most prominent ones, and has those scripts available as functions.
But that now really is off topic.
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This implies never upgrading device’s firmware. It’s an option, until something forces an update (like old java not supporting new authentication methods), and then you are in a difficult situation.
I’ve found relatively simple to upgrade from OH 2 to OH4 as soon as a new stable release is published. Starting with OH4, I’ve installed every milestone release. There were lots of breaking changes, so I had to deal with small changes every time. If I had waited 3 years to move from OH2 to OH4 directly it would have been a nightmare. My option (it doesn’t mean a generalized one) is to move progressively.
I don’t think that OH is more complex than HA. Sure, in HA there are more pre-built things, but when it comes to automations you have a vast catalog of cards. It’s not easy to pick the ones that suit you best, and in some cases you have to modify an existing one, and this seems to be very complex. Lot’s of HA users prefer to use NodeRed to avoid this complexity. Frankly I prefer a more basic system like OH where I can do what I want very easy.
The posts from people that moved from OH to HA also reveal that they do not believe in OH’s future. I don’t know what wheighted more in their decision, if this or HA’s apparent simplicity. But I understand why they say so.
For example, I use TAPO switches. I am not going to update their firmware for the time being because a new binding version is needed. But what if I need to buy more devices and they come with the new firmware installed. Right, I can install a jar in addon folder. But this should not be the case. I really can’t understand why the pull request approval process takes so long. It has been there for almost one month. It’s all right to use addon folder and jars during the development process, for updates it’s not acceptable for long periods IMHO. And what if the binding author has a problem or decides to leave ? Who will take care ?
I really think that, sometime in the future, OH has to evolve to some sort of paid model as HA and Homey have done.
I think no
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So do I.
I’d even see OH staying free as a chance of people to move from HA to OH at some point in time, maybe when NabuCasa attempts to squeeze more money out of HA.
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Yeah I got those. And Windows I think.
This is not as simple to answer as you might hope or think. We cannot tell anybody to take over an unmaintained binding. This can only be done if you pay for it. Furthermore, you have to find someone who owns that type of hardware. Development without having the hardware at hand can be really painfull and time consuming. I know what I am talking about, as I did this with many devices supported by the Wemo Binding. One reason for not having the hardware was there have not been European versions, just US ones and it was not worth for me to buy those, just for development.
If it is coming to updates cause of core changes, I have seen a lot of fixes/updates provided by our maintainers. They really care about not breaking stuff. But they cannot provide updates issued by vendors changing their APIs or firmware.
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So probably the best strategy is to have two systems, one for production and another for testing, and do not update device’s firmware.
Sometimes users fund the binding developer, it happened with the Tapo binding.
I know, received a bounty for the Wemo Binding myself. But this is not usual.
I am not part of the core team, but what you’re worried about is nothing to do with the openHAB core. An outside API change is purely about bindings/addons/integrations. To use a recent example of how openHAB can respond quickly, is a Reolink camera user brought up issues due to the API changed to a V2, within a few days of knowing about the problem, I had fixed the issues and supplied a fixed jar that can be dropped into a folder and the problem is solved for the user/s. OpenHAB is fantastic for this as parts can be ripped out and replaced whilst it is running and even no reboot needed. You can stay on the stable core and just swap out the module that is causing you an issue.
The problem is having enough volunteers, especially as you need a volunteer that has that exact piece of hardware or uses the cloud service etc… People could crowd fund hardware to gift to willing volunteers, it is just up to the community to volunteer to organize that. The loss of coding volunteers can be from sickness, busy with starting a family or new job, to the volunteer not getting code accepted and merged feeling their hard work is wasted. We need to constantly attract new volunteers to replace the ones that get lost for whatever reason, and also fix any reasons they leave that are in our control to change.
The other factor is quality control, to then get changes merged we have a strict QC that requires a volunteer to go over every line of code and then approve it. Not many PR pass without needing to make changes here at OH. This means it takes longer but we will get less breaking changes and less bugs due to a person suggesting a better way to implement something that the writer did not consider.
Compare that to HA since this is the reason for the thread…
HA makes you have to approve 2 other PR, before you can get your own approved. So the person doing the review may not be the best person to do the review, or they may want to do bare minimum to someone else’s, just to get their one merged. What will the result will be? Faster changes merged, but more bugs and breaking changes. I just checked 5 random PR for HA, and all of them had zero feedback and zero requested changes and just got approved. Which way is better? Whilst it may be painful to wait, you do not have to with openhab, as you can just drop in the jar file or install from the marketplace. Of course this can be improved in many ways but that’s off topic. @moody_blue it’s great that you care, so will you and others help to improve something? If so link at bottom of this post.
Nothing stops end users from starting a crowd funding project, raise money and pay/tip/gift hardware to a developer. In fact we already have the bounty system setup for many years now, but if someone wants to setup another way, the only thing stopping it is a volunteer willing to step up if the foundation legally can not do it. There are many different ways to fund development, or reward volunteers to encourage them further, it does not have to be the same as other projects. I want openHAB to remain free, but if there is a way to tip to reward that also includes the reviewing volunteers, the ones that write guides, do an awesome job helping on the forum ( @rlkoshak), and fixing documentation, then I am all for it. Maybe a yearly award/gift to the person that contributes the most in each key area.
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The donation link works but not the BountySource one.
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Sorry, just my 5 cents. I donate 1 euro/month to Openhab foundation since quite a few years and will be donating as long as I use OH. BTW I don‘t use Openhab cloud and stay at 2.4.0 cause my Home Automation is mission-critical.
And I assume I‘m not the only one and that OH Foundation entity in Germany as a non-profit organization has enough money to pay to maintainers, which can not be called „volunteers“ anymore in my understanding, as opposite to somebody‘s explanation here. Their contribution should be paid!
If OH foundation doesn‘t pay for OH support, cloud and whole OH Project is „volunteered“ - let me know and i will stop supporting this useless organization.
And the foundation is thankfull for every donation received.
I really wonder how you can tell how much money the foundation has.
I think you are referring to my earlier explanations and I am happy to repeat myself.
Reason for not being able to pay maintainers or developers is not a lack of money, but German tax regulations. This is hard to understand for non German residents. The openHAB foundation was founded with a clear goal written in the constitution, customer information and customer safety. This is the base we received the non-profit status and tax exemption for.
Spending money for other purposes would risk those and we would have to close the foundation. And guess what would happen to all the servers (myopenHAB, discourse, jenkins, website) the foundation is paying for? We would need to shut them down.
So please, don’t ever call the foundation a useless organization again.
It is far, far from that.
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Shouldn‘t it be in open report? It‘s not a confidential information, isn‘t it?
I‘m a german resident too btw.
Sorry, now I read the Satzung and i‘m lost.
- Who pays for OH Cloud?
- who pays for OH Repos, Build and CI Servers/Infrastructure?
- Who pays for Openhab website hosting and this community server?
No, it is confidential.
Ok, could not know this.
The openHAB foundation is paying for all the servers running the above, as they are needed to fulfill what the foundation stands for.
But if you read the constitution, there is nothing written about development. So paying a developer would not be covered by the „allowed“ expenses, in German „Betriebskosten“.
I read a few times (also in other threads) that important tasks for openhab (such as marketing, coordination or payment of developers) may not be pursued by the foundation at the risk of losing its NPO status. Understood. What is the downside of losing the status and become a non-NPO 
as we gain more (monetary) flexibility to support and fund important tasks around openhab?
I certainly have limited information but at the moment it seems to me as this model (how old is it anyway) is ancient and cannot cope with challenges of today.
We would also loose the tax exemption and it will make it more difficult to receive donations.
But this is nothing to be discussed in this topic here!
Agree not the place but this should be looked and discussed. In my country and a member of a non for profit association, the association likes to have yearly meetings with members and are open on bank balances and vote as to where the funds get spent to ensure the goals of the association are moving forwards and the members feel the funds are in trustworthy hands. Perhaps this can get moved to a new thread and discussed? With bounty source now closed there are a number of areas that need sorting out.
We have an annual assembly where all foundation members are invited and can discuss anything. Bank balances are published to the members on those meetings as well.
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