[Nut-upsdev] Why not make money and sell Network UPS Tools App on the Mac and iOS App Stores?

[Charles Lepple]

On Dec 9, 2018, at 3:28 AM, Tony Watkin <ozwatters at outlook.com> wrote:
> 
> Hello Devs of NetworkUPS Tool.Org,
>  
> Like many people I have a UPS (CypberPower BR850ELCD) connected via USB to my Synology NAS but I would like my LAN clients (Apple Mac) to be able to get information about the status of the UPS, the UPS battery etc.

I haven't set up or administered a NAS in years, so maybe this is a silly question: isn't there a web page or something that shows the status of the UPS that the NAS is relying on?

>  Unfortunately, there isn’t a Network UPS Tools App on either the iOS or Mac App stores. Surely this would be a golden opportunity for “NetworkUPSTools.org” to obtain revenue to fund ongoing development?

I can't speak for the other developers, but two major points have prevented me from looking into developing a GUI app:

1) The market seems small. Few people ask about getting NUT running on a Mac, let alone on iOS. (There is also the issue of app pricing.)

2) Given point #1, I haven't consulted a lawyer to see whether the current App Store rules are compatible with GPL-licensed software (and my gut says no).

That said, there are several options for bringing up status information on a Mac.

The first would be the NUT CGI scripts. Most web servers have an option to run CGI scripts, and NUT includes some code to display a grid of basic server stats, plus detail on each UPS.

I personally use a web frontend to collectd, which has a NUT plugin: https://collectd.org/wiki/index.php/Plugin:NUT

There is also a Python GUI: https://www.lestat.st/en/informatique/projets/nut-monitor 

And of course, there are the command-line tools. NUT is available in http://www.finkproject.org , https://formulae.brew.sh/formula/nut and https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/blob/master/sysutils/nut/Portfile

Because the network protocol for NUT is openly documented, another developer could write some Mac/iOS GUI code under a non-GPL license to talk to a NUT server.

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