Well, I don't know what you consider a short term, but PiKVM feels pretty good throughout its existence, and it has been for several years. It seems that we have set priorities differently at the start. My policy has always been that throughout the entire lifecycle of the device, the user must be sure of its security. In particular, this means that the user must receive updates. There is nothing more important than security when it comes to equipment, and I hate when a device turns into a unsafe brick after a few years. That's why we put it into the business model even before the first Kickstarter.
Another thing that made it possible to do this is the automation of all routine processes, such as testing and package builds. In PiKVM, the first component that was written was a build system to solve this issue once and for all. In this vein, I made a huge contribution to the "pre-launch" before flying. BTW, to be honest, I was somewhat surprised that you used Ansible instead of packages, it seems that this caused you a giant overhead for support.
Of course, in the future we plan to provide some paid services, but this does not concern the regular OS and access to updates at all, they should remain free.
Another thing that made it possible to do this is the automation of all routine processes, such as testing and package builds. In PiKVM, the first component that was written was a build system to solve this issue once and for all. In this vein, I made a huge contribution to the "pre-launch" before flying. BTW, to be honest, I was somewhat surprised that you used Ansible instead of packages, it seems that this caused you a giant overhead for support.
Of course, in the future we plan to provide some paid services, but this does not concern the regular OS and access to updates at all, they should remain free.