[weikju]

Please keep in mind I’m asking with genuine interest as I am a happy OrbStack user otherwise, (for private use).

What is the reason Orbstack needs a connection to your license server for continued operation?

I was moving and during nearly a month there was no home internet. My server was happily chugging along on wifi though, but one day I connected to it and saw a message that OrbStack couldn’t contact the license server and soon stop functioning.

This put me off a bit and made me consider whether I want to run anything I depend on using this.

[password4321]

As you appear to be aware per the prefix to your question, this is the nature of all subscription software... what alternative would you choose if you were the author? Requiring the personal use edition to phone home once a month probably increases the potential sale price of the business by at least one order of magnitude.

It would be more interesting to know the plans for tracking down commercial users abusing the personal license, maybe Oracle VirtualBox Extension Pack reverse IP address lookup style. The ins and outs of software license enforcement doesn't play well on HN, though I'm guessing there are few complaints about OrbStack requiring a subscription because they offer a free personal use license and the entry level commercial use license is so cheap vs. the value provided.

It's actually exciting to see a dev tool where the developers have a sustainable business model, but this usually means there will be plenty of offers to cash out.