SylviaJul 19, 2025

I would like to urge my followers to strongly avoid #TRMNL.

TRMNL calls itself "unbrickable" and Open Source, telling you you can host your own server and that basically everything is fully supported: https://web.archive.org/web/20250718183453/https://docs.usetrmnl.com/go/diy/byos. This is not true. The only thing a local server can do is send images to the device and *proxy from their proprietary server*: https://web.archive.org/web/20250718062040/https://github.com/usetrmnl/byos_hanami/issues/178.

To add insult to injury, TRMNL is trying to refuse me a refund, in gross violation of EU law.

#UseTRMNL #DoNotUseTRMNL

Show threadKramer CanfieldJul 31, 2025
@SylvieLorxu I suggest trying the Bring Your Own Server software (e.g. the Laravel based one) you can use and never proxy images from the cloud or even log in to the TRMNL web app. I use the Laravel one and it runs completely on my home network. I don’t get the benefit of the native plugins though so I’m completely using my own plugins I have made or adapted. I’m also investigating alternative BYOD hardware to save cost. Looking forward to other ideas where possible. @Wren
Show threadSylviaAug 1, 2025

@kramercanfield @Wren So, if they would've been honest in their marketing and documentation, I'd have accepted that. But they promised plugins were supported, yet don't let you run it offline. That type of openwashing is just not acceptable to me.

I'm okay with making sacrifices when self hosting, I'm not okay with paying a premium because I'm promised features X, Y and Z but I find out only X is available to me after paying. That's just not OK.

Show threadSylviaAug 1, 2025

@kramercanfield @Wren I'm glad custom plugins are possible (though woefully under documented), but hiding that all "official" plugins are proprietary felt like extremely sketchy openwashing to me. Together with them saying "Bring Your Own Server" supports plugins with no such note whatsoever completely broke my trust in them.

Just out of curiosity though, where do people host these custom plugins, how are you supposed to discover them and how are you supposed to install them? Docs were lacking.

Show threadKramer CanfieldAug 1, 2025
@SylvieLorxu @Wren This repo has some native plugins (in Ruby) but if you scroll down a little there are links to tools and community plugins https://github.com/usetrmnl/plugins where you can find the markup. There are quite a few community ones. You have to open a Pull Request or have a Developer license to get added to the featured list and I haven’t tried that yet. I agree the docs could and should be clearer about what “support” means for various features on the BYOS options.
Show threadSylvia

@kramercanfield @Wren Those community plugins are sadly proprietary too, there is no license specified on that repository :(

Open to look at is something but... not remotely sufficient for a project that so openly claims to be open source :(

Aug 1, 2025 at 3:26pmWeb
Show threadKramer CanfieldAug 1, 2025

@SylvieLorxu @Wren I’m not too familiar with open source licensing. It seems like the intent of the list here is sharing and re-use at a minimum. Here is a resource I found for myself https://choosealicense.com/ and what happens without a license https://choosealicense.com/no-permission/. Is this a good resource?

According to this page, the GitHub Terms of Service allow others to fork a public repo by default and recommends asking the maintainer of a repo to add a license.

Choose an open source license

Non-judgmental guidance on choosing a license for your open source project

Choose a License
Show threadSylviaAug 2, 2025

@kramercanfield @Wren It gets the basics right. Some criticize the GitHub page for making copyleft licenses sound "too negative", but that's all.

But yeah, open source has a pretty clear definition and just being able to fork it on GitHub is not enough: https://opensource.org/osd

The GitHub forking being allowed is because of GitHub's terms of service, so they are protected legally, it purposefully does not allow more than using basic GitHub features because it is just for their legal certainty.

The Open Source Definition - Open Source Initiative

Introduction Open source doesn’t just mean access to the source code. The distribution terms of open source software must comply with the following criteria: 1. Free Redistribution The license shall...

Open Source Initiative