librenms-librenms/doc/Observium_Welcome.md

Welcome to Observium users
--------------------------

LibreNMS is a fork of Observium.  The reason for the fork is nothing to do
with Observium's [recent move to community vs. paid versions][1].  It is
simply that we have different priorities and values to the Observium
developers.  We decided to fork (reluctantly) because we like using
Observium, but we want to collaborate on a community-based project with
like-minded IT professionals.  See [README.md][2] and the references there
for more information about the kind of community we're trying to promote.

LibreNMS was forked from [the last GPL-licensed version of Observium][3].
This has a few implications:
- It doesn't look as nice as the current version of Observium.
- We've lost quite a bit of functionality that has been added to Observium
  in the last year.
- You won't be able to take an existing Observium installation later than
  r3250 and just change it to LibreNMS.  This would probably break (although
  if you were on a version between r3250 and the next database schema
  change, it might be feasible).  Upgrades from versions earlier than r3251
  might work.  Please try it on an unimportant system and tell us your
  experiences!

How LibreNMS will be different from Observium:
- We will have an inclusive community, where it's OK to ask stupid
  questions, and OK to ask for things that aren't on the roadmap.  If you'd
  like to see something added, add or comment on the relevant issue in our
  [GitHub issue database][9].
- Development decisions will be community-driven.  We want to make software
  that fulfills its users' needs.  See the [ROADMAP][4] for more thoughts
  on our current plans.
- Development will probably proceed at a slower pace, at least initially.
- There are no plans for a paid version, and we don't anticipate this ever
  changing.
- There are no current plans for paid support, but this may be added later
  if there is sufficient demand.
- We use git for version control and GitHub for hosting to make it as easy
  and painless as possible to create forked or private versions.

Reasons why you might want to use Observium instead of LibreNMS:
- You have a financial investment in Observium and aren't concerned about
  community contributions.
- You need the extra functionality that has been added to Observium since
  r3250.
- You don't like the [GNU General Public License, version 3][5] or the
  [philosophy of Free Software][6] in general.

Reasons why you might want to use LibreNMS instead of Observium:
- You want to work with others on the project, knowing that [your
  investment of time and effort will not be wasted][7].
- You want to add and experiment with features that are not a priority for
  the Observium developers.  See [CONTRIBUTING][8] for more details.

[1]: http://postman.memetic.org/pipermail/observium/2013-October/003915.html
"Observium edition split announcement"
[2]: https://github.com/librenms/librenms/blob/master/README.md
"LibreNMS README"
[3]: http://fisheye.observium.org/rdiff/Observium?csid=3251&u&N
"Link to Observium license change"
[4]: https://github.com/librenms/librenms/blob/master/doc/ROADMAP.md
"LibreNMS ROADMAP"
[5]: https://github.com/librenms/librenms/blob/master/LICENSE.txt
"LibreNMS copy of GPL v3"
[6]: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
"Free Software Foundation - what is free software?"
[7]: http://libertysys.com.au/blog/observium-and-gpl
"Paul's blog on what the GPL offers users"
[8]: https://github.com/librenms/librenms/blob/master/doc/CONTRIBUTING.md
"Contribution guidelines"
[9]: https://github.com/librenms/librenms/issues
"LibreNMS issue database at GitHub"