Software Freedom

RealNAS remains usable, modifiable, redistributable, and forkable without an account, license server, or paid entitlement.

It also keeps the storage control point local. The data lives on hardware you administer, in formats and protocols that have independent implementations, with no required project account or registration step.

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Your hardware, your data

Hosted storage can be reliable and convenient, but it changes who controls important parts of the system. Your data may live on hardware you do not own, in facilities you do not control, under terms that can change. Sometimes that trade is fine. Sometimes it is not.

RealNAS is for households, small businesses, labs, offices, departments, archives, and regulated environments that need storage they can inspect, repair, replace, and keep running themselves.

What hosted storage changes

• The provider may hold or manage the encryption keys.
• The provider may scan stored content under its acceptable-use or abuse policies.
• The provider can change prices, quotas, retention rules, or product scope.
• The provider can be acquired, discontinued, or moved into a different jurisdiction.
• The provider can suffer a breach, outage, deletion event, or operational error.
• The provider can be legally compelled to disclose data, depending on its jurisdiction and yours.

Self-hosting does not remove responsibility. Disks fail, updates need planning, backups need to be tested, and power, cooling, monitoring, and physical security fall to the operator. The benefit is control: you decide where the data lives, who has access, how it is backed up, when software changes, and how long the hardware stays in use.

Portable formats and protocols

ZFS

The filesystem. A pool created or managed by RealNAS can be imported by another compatible ZFS implementation.

SMB

The common file-sharing protocol for Windows, macOS, and mixed networks. RealNAS uses Samba from the FreeBSD ports ecosystem.

NFS

The Unix file-sharing protocol, implemented by the FreeBSD NFS server.

FreeBSD

The operating system. It remains a normal FreeBSD host with normal FreeBSD administration tools.

If RealNAS stops being the right tool, the data remains reachable without conversion through a proprietary format or a vendor export flow.

License approach

RealNAS builds on FreeBSD, OpenZFS, Samba, and inherited middleware. New project code uses BSD-style licenses unless an inherited file requires a different license.

FreeBSD base system

BSD licenses. Used unmodified.

OpenZFS

CDDL. Used as packaged by FreeBSD.

Samba

GPLv3. Used from the FreeBSD ports tree.

Inherited middleware

GPLv3 and LGPLv3 components, retained under their original terms. Modifications stay under the same license.

New RealNAS code

BSD-style unless an inherited file requires otherwise.

License texts are included in the source distribution. File-level headers and the source tree are authoritative where this page summarizes.

Contributor copyright

The project does not require a contributor-license agreement that assigns copyright to one company or maintainer. Contributors keep copyright in their work and contribute it under the license attached to the file.

That prevents a single party from taking the whole project proprietary later. A future maintainer can change their own work, but they cannot revoke rights already granted by the existing licenses or relicense other contributors' code without permission.

Forking

A fork can build the software for stock FreeBSD from the public source. RealNAS does not require a patched kernel, activation service, custom installer, or maintainer-operated infrastructure.

Paid unlocks

RealNAS does not publish a limited community edition to push users toward a paid one. Normal NAS management has no account requirement, click-through terms, usage meter, or paid feature gate.

Paid services may include support contracts, hosted deployments, integration work, certified hardware, or signed mirrors with service-level terms. They add service around the product; they do not remove features from the free build.

Constraints

• Core features work offline. A RealNAS installation keeps working without project-operated services.
• Development is not telemetry-funded. The project does not fund development by collecting, aggregating, or selling installation data.
• The default path is source-available. Optional integrations may use third-party components.
• Registration is absent. A system that is never registered anywhere is still a full RealNAS system.
• Licensing is local. There is no activation step, hardware lock, or remote entitlement check.
• Hardware stays useful. Storage hardware should not become unusable because a vendor shuts down an activation service, stops shipping an image, or ends a product line.

Project telemetry

RealNAS does not collect telemetry, usage statistics, diagnostic bundles, pool layouts, hardware inventories, or feature-use reports. Project accounts and registration are not part of the product.

A fresh install initiates outbound traffic only for services you configure, such as SMTP, replication targets, syslog forwarding, or package updates from the mirror you choose.

Paid work

Free software can support paid work. The project can charge for support, hosting, integration, hardware certification, signed-mirror access, or sponsored development. Payment buys service, not permission to use the software.