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Comment by breck | Hacker News Reader

I haven't looked at the software stack in a while. Has RM gone more open source yet? I didn't like how they were pivoting to toward the SaaS subscription thing. I'd much rather pay a little more up front for a fully open device then cheaper upfront but with an annoying subscription plus closed source.

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The RM runs on linux and they hand you the admin password. I'm not sure how much more open you can get. Just SSH into the device and then use one of the 3rd party stacks for syncing.

No I get it and loved the RM open source community. I was involved with that a few years ago. At the time the SaaS stuff was new and I personally thought they should have gone the other way and doubled down on a fully open stack, but then I kind of moved on to other things and haven't kept up with what has happened since, and whether they were doubling down on closed source/SaaS or the opposite.

I do agree them pressing the SaaS angle feels bad. Once I found out about the stack that the RM is built on I was blown away, I definitely had a moment of "why are they hiding this?". I told a few others in my office (we're software engineers) and everyone was completely unaware that this was an option. They really do bury the capabilities of the hardware.

It feels like a tax on the less technical/informed.

> Once I found out about the stack that the RM is built on I was blown away, I definitely had a moment of "why are they hiding this?"

Right?? I mean, their tech is amazing. They are clearly cream of the crop, passionate, engineer craftspeople. They should be the anti-Apple and be extremely open. RaspberryPi style.

I think they’re the same as ever…not as good as I’d like but miles ahead of anyone else.

It’ll be neat to see if this device is more or less locked down. I hope less.

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