Comment by skrtskrt

I would say if you're going to charge a pretty penny for the box, you have to make it ridiculously seamless to run every app the way a user wants, without issue.

TrueNAS sort of half-accomplishes this but as soon as you have to start configuring Redis and Postgres parameters to install Immich or understanding how to set permission on every layer of the filesystem so you can SMB share, the idea of a normal person being able to do this goes completely out the window.

My advice is to go ahead and just open-source everything. You won't on being closed-source anyway. You'll win on the experience for nontechnical users (or tehcnical users that don't want to spend time fiddling). You'll stomp out these complaints on Reddit and HackerNews so people don't get a bunch of negative comments when they google your company.