Indeed, “open source” has a specific definition, but in this kitchen the sausage is “powered by a worldwide community”. It’s not just about it being open source.
Sorry, it still doesn’t matter. We are not ENTITLED to anything it’s open source not open governance… BIG difference.
Small single repo or massive community. There’s re still code owners.They drive.
Its still Wolfgang puck inviting you into the kitchen.And If he doesn’t like how you dice the onions… Out. Feel free to comment it’s STILL Pucks kitchen and he CAN and will ignore you.
Just because it’s big doesn’t change the dynamic.
12 Likes
I Installed 2026.2.0b1, and note a change in the way my media player entities work in an entities card, currently looks like this, populated with my monoprice custom entities:
If I click on an entity that is “on”, i get:
The source button at the bottom allows me to change sources easily, and the 3 dot menu gives this under “device info”:
So now the source change no longer works. I can use mini media cards, and input source change works, but they are individual cards, and look worse IMHO:
The spacing is bad and I have to deal with rather spastic card layout issues as usual, yes I know about stacking cards, but the entities card layout works for me. I also loose easy access to 3 dot device info. I am not sure if this change is intended, a result of the custom monoprice integration I use, or if there is another way to resolve this, any advice appreciated. Thanks in advance
The food service analogy is very apt. I used to work in food service. The parallels are striking.
There were whiners and complainers among the customers. Nobody on the staff liked them. Over time it was very easy to get cynical toward them. After a while staff had a hard time respecting even the legitimate concerns. It became easy to dismiss those concerns as just one stupid customer’s opinion. Make excuses. Ignore the problem.
Eventually an “Us vs. Them” mentality can develop. Staff starts to get bitter and think “this operation would run so much more efficiently if it weren’t for all those darn customers!”
To be successful, management has to continuously fight to avoid this attitude. They knew that for every complaint, there were 100 other customers who had quietly left in disgust, never to return. And sure to tell all their friends. Without customers, what’s the point of the whole operation?
Now, replace the word “customer” above with “user” and re-read it.
Is anything starting to look familiar?
2 Likes
You’ve been repeating this for 6 years now and HA has only grown… give it a rest. People care, the dev team cares, mistakes happen.
If there’s a complaint thread, you can bet CapTom is in there mentioning us vs them.
4 Likes
Yes. Just as it was repeated to me for decades working in IT, and before that, in food service.
It takes constant reminders and a real ownership by leadership to avoid the “Us vs. Them” attitude. Every time a concern is treated dismissively, it should be challenged.
It helps to remove the word “user” from our vocabulary and replace it with “customer.” Even if they’re not paying, they’re still critical to the success of the project.
HA is a fantastic product, and can be proud of it’s success. But it takes vigilance to keep it that way.
3 Likes
I’ve always seen it as more of a soup kitchen with all the volunteers and contributors for the various parts: back of house, front of house, etc.
So when an irate person storms into the back kitchen full of steam smoke and busy people slamming a plate down then yelling about the quality of their meal, stopping everything in its tracks while the kitchen stops to stares at them, the natural response should be “well yeah, grab a towel and jump in where you can!”
The tension I see in threads like this is people expecting a restaurant when they’re standing in a community kitchen.
7 Likes
Hah, that is a nice analogy
1 Like
Yes, there are two industries that have “users”: computer and illegal drugs.
Both sets of customers are treated with similar contempt!
I also recognise people rise to their maximum level of incomptence and that some entities stagnate and die if they don’t listen to their customer needs, innovate and move with the times. Some bright upstart comes along and offers something new, shiny, and the influencers jump on the bandwagon, and like Kodak, Polaroid, Olivetti, Remington, MySpace etc, all of a sudden their products are not relevant any more.
A complaint is a gift. The dissatisfied customer has gone out of their way to give you valuable feedback. Ignore at your peril.
Harness persistent complainers - put the onus on them to offer an alternate that is better, and in the discussion that follows, both parties may benefit from ideas that are implemented, but also those that are discarded as understanding awakens, and alternative options explored. Open source can be powerful as there can be many more contributors to ideas than a stagnating company full of people set in their habits and narrow approaches.
This is why startups flourish - somebody full of enthusiasm and ideas, and an innocent unawareness of “why things can’t be done that way”, gleefully goes ahead and does them. The goal posts move and everybody adapts. Those that don’t fall by the wayside. Given the size of HomeAssistant and the inertia, there is a real risk this could happen here also unless you have a clearly focused team, paid or not, to form a vision, and follow through with it, constantly innovating and offering a better alternative that fills their customer needs.
4 Likes
oh, you are right. On desktop there are links. On my android if i try to long press a menu entry to open in a new page there mostly nothing happens. But when i try it several times i am able to see a link /open a new page. Very strange indeed.
I installed 2026.2.0b2 and found the moved developer tools give me another indiscernable tab in my browser. They all have the Titel Settings rather then Automations, Integrations, Developertools
There is already a feature request:
8 Likes
Regarding the renaming Addons/Apps, couldnt it be named
[ Apps (Addons) ]
for some time to give all the (new) users looking at howtos a chance to find what they are looking for?
2 Likes
It’s all covered here: Why I'm proposing we rename add-ons to "apps" (and why it matters for newcomers) - #261 by frenck.
1 Like
they only have Add-on Apps, thats very different then the new Word with the old one in Parentheses behind it 
I think moving it is good/correct. IMO it does not belong on the main menu by default. But the way it was moved could have been better.
When I updated to 2022.2 I was not aware it had been moved … it dissapeared! No doubt I missed it some release notes but that misses the point as I think many people will not know (we do not all read the release notes as well as we should). After a panic search I stumbled on this thread and then I found it. Existing user documentation still says it is in its old place.
Improvements to how it was done:
-
Update the help info with the release (yes I know users can do this but that is casing the tail). After 2022.2 release Developer tools - Home Assistant is showing:
-
For a few releases keep the old menu item (copy?) that shows a page with a message “THIS MENU HAS MOVED TO …” . Well something like that, maybe a once only thing.
This avoids stupid people like me from panic, searching, and sending negative thoughts for a while 
1 Like
Well, what’s done is done. No point of arguing about it, i guess. Decision was made, and that’s it, whether users love it or hate it. I changed my sidebar so i have it roughly the way i want.
Beta testing is over and 2026.2 is released. Thank you all for your participation.
To continue the discussion please see the release announcement topic here: 2026.2: Home, sweet overview
1 Like