4 ms·

> What I personally would like (and I'm still using a mix of pfSense and OpnSense for all GUI-needing systems) is an API-first system, with either no GUI at all

by gonzo 8y ago

> What I personally would like (and I'm still using a mix of pfSense and OpnSense for all GUI-needing systems) is an API-first system, with either no GUI at all, or an optional GUI. Yup. Have you looked at TNSR? It’s what we’re doing (in addition to pfSense). https://www.netgate.com/products/tnsr/ https://www.netgate.com/products/tnsr/ Docs: https://www.netgate.com/docs/tnsr/ https://www.netgate.com/docs/tnsr/ API (be sure to hit Nav -> Modules) https://www.netgate.com/docs/tnsr/api/ https://www.netgate.com/docs/tnsr/api/ As for your prediction that we will take pfSense “full on commercial”,... Well, frankly, you’re wrong.

oneplane 8y ago
Well, frankly, your software has: 1. a big banner with angry text about commercial and trademark stuff 2. a widget about Netgate selling you stuff 3. A Netgate Device ID so you can track pfSense and no way to remove that Basically, pfSense is Netgate's b!tch, and almost none of the FOSS community spirit is left. You don't see this with other projects, it's clearly a direction chosen by Netgate and the paid people. It's about money, and about being commercial. The community forum is a commercial outlet, and anything that might even come close to not giving netgate sales is censored. About TNSR, it does look like a neat set of features for the much more integrated cloud world, and SDN setups, but there is no easy to find information about the state of licensing, cost, sources etc. It's very easy to buy this stuff already, the only interesting things for most members of our implementors forum is having a FOSS solution with paid support and perhaps enterprise extras to buy like Elastico's X-Pack. Even if TNSR were to come out on top in terms of features and compatibility with existing infrastructures, it wouldn't have any space to operate in, at least not in the current markets we are servicing (which is pretty much eurasia except china and russia, plus brazil and canada).
- kev009 8y ago
  I understand all of your points. I also understand the business of a company like Netgate. Their primary condition is that you don't take their work, modify it, and still call it pfSense. That's not any different than RedHat or Canonical (who might not need a banner because they have a fleet of legal staff that quietly handles "compliance"). On the human side this is a product that they put a lot of work into and is also the livelihood of the main contributors, so yes they do deserve to be compensated with their products and services offerings, and trademark is a reasonable tool to enforce so people know they are dealing with the real product they support and said main contributors. Projects owned by a company also have almost no governance infighting nor analysis paralysis issues; there are trade offs to everything. They are giving you the software for free under permissive licenses. If you want to take it, remove the ID, and make money using their exact business model, you can do that if you call it something else. That is exactly what OPNSense is. Being permissively licensed it's generous to the point that you can take the code, turn it into a proprietary product, and make a fortune without ever communicating or doing anything for the parent. By respecting the trademark they aren't asking for much at all.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    Netgate didn’t build pfsense from scratch, it’s a fork of monowall which is in turn basically just a GUI on top of the networking stack that ships with FreeBSD. Netgate deserve some credit for their effort, but not so much that we should turn a blind eye when they get bitchy and malicious about the use of open source code. I’ve said for a long time now that the whole AES hardware requirement would prove to be little more than a red herring to dampen open hardware sales; it’s pretty hard to argue otherwise now.
    - sjwright 8y ago
      Voted down—Netgate's famously thin skinned reps at work again I'm sure.
      - sctb 8y ago
        Vote quietly and without insinuating shillage, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        sjwright 8y ago
        A nice rule in the abstract.
  - oneplane 8y ago
    Well, it's not really about any of that. It's the same stuff they have been saying, but what it is actually about is trying to say 'we are a neat community FOSS project' on one side, by actually being a generic commercial vendor that happens to have an open OS due to legacy reasons. In the 1.2.3 and early 2.0 days, it was all fine, before that it was mostly 'just monowall' and after that it was 'lets try to work full time on this stuff and make money'. There is no reason to be assholes as other projects work fine using the same free open core + paid enterprise version, this is something Netgate-specific, probably due to the hardware business where you have physical things that lose value unless you unload them quickly. Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying commercial business of trying to sell hardware/software is inherently bad, but being pissy because someone else does it too is just weak.

by gonzo 8y ago

oneplane 8y ago

Well, frankly, your software has: 1. a big banner with angry text about commercial and trademark stuff 2. a widget about Netgate selling you stuff 3. A Netgate Device ID so you can track pfSense and no way to remove that Basically, pfSense is Netgate's b!tch, and almost none of the FOSS community spirit is left. You don't see this with other projects, it's clearly a direction chosen by Netgate and the paid people. It's about money, and about being commercial. The community forum is a commercial outlet, and anything that might even come close to not giving netgate sales is censored. About TNSR, it does look like a neat set of features for the much more integrated cloud world, and SDN setups, but there is no easy to find information about the state of licensing, cost, sources etc. It's very easy to buy this stuff already, the only interesting things for most members of our implementors forum is having a FOSS solution with paid support and perhaps enterprise extras to buy like Elastico's X-Pack. Even if TNSR were to come out on top in terms of features and compatibility with existing infrastructures, it wouldn't have any space to operate in, at least not in the current markets we are servicing (which is pretty much eurasia except china and russia, plus brazil and canada).

kev009 8y ago
I understand all of your points. I also understand the business of a company like Netgate. Their primary condition is that you don't take their work, modify it, and still call it pfSense. That's not any different than RedHat or Canonical (who might not need a banner because they have a fleet of legal staff that quietly handles "compliance"). On the human side this is a product that they put a lot of work into and is also the livelihood of the main contributors, so yes they do deserve to be compensated with their products and services offerings, and trademark is a reasonable tool to enforce so people know they are dealing with the real product they support and said main contributors. Projects owned by a company also have almost no governance infighting nor analysis paralysis issues; there are trade offs to everything. They are giving you the software for free under permissive licenses. If you want to take it, remove the ID, and make money using their exact business model, you can do that if you call it something else. That is exactly what OPNSense is. Being permissively licensed it's generous to the point that you can take the code, turn it into a proprietary product, and make a fortune without ever communicating or doing anything for the parent. By respecting the trademark they aren't asking for much at all.
- sjwright 8y ago
  Netgate didn’t build pfsense from scratch, it’s a fork of monowall which is in turn basically just a GUI on top of the networking stack that ships with FreeBSD. Netgate deserve some credit for their effort, but not so much that we should turn a blind eye when they get bitchy and malicious about the use of open source code. I’ve said for a long time now that the whole AES hardware requirement would prove to be little more than a red herring to dampen open hardware sales; it’s pretty hard to argue otherwise now.
  - sjwright 8y ago
    Voted down—Netgate's famously thin skinned reps at work again I'm sure.
    - sctb 8y ago
      Vote quietly and without insinuating shillage, please. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
      - sjwright 8y ago
        A nice rule in the abstract.
- oneplane 8y ago
  Well, it's not really about any of that. It's the same stuff they have been saying, but what it is actually about is trying to say 'we are a neat community FOSS project' on one side, by actually being a generic commercial vendor that happens to have an open OS due to legacy reasons. In the 1.2.3 and early 2.0 days, it was all fine, before that it was mostly 'just monowall' and after that it was 'lets try to work full time on this stuff and make money'. There is no reason to be assholes as other projects work fine using the same free open core + paid enterprise version, this is something Netgate-specific, probably due to the hardware business where you have physical things that lose value unless you unload them quickly. Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying commercial business of trying to sell hardware/software is inherently bad, but being pissy because someone else does it too is just weak.