Navigating to Buy pfSense +
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@chigh09 said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
I want to offer a different perspective on this because I think it’s important. Let’s imagine that we are netgate and noticed an uptick in lost income because of the misuse of our software distribution. Now I’m not saying it was right or wrong but if it were me I would shut it down as well. Should we have issued a statement before shutting it down? I think it would have been the best move, but maybe we don’t know the whole story. And maybe if there were a statement before the shutdown then there would have been a mad rush to get as many free licenses as possible (just thinking out loud). I don’t know if they really intended to lose our trust, but rather they tried to make the best decision with the time they had.
I know it’s easy to feel like the victim and wanting to stick it to them with threats and say they will never use pfsense again, but I think we are all better than this. I say we might want to give them some time to rectify this situation and see what they come up with. We all aren’t perfect and yeah, everyone and every company makes mistakes. So, we could sit here and complain about the decisions being made or we can once again come together as a community and offer constructive feedback in a civil manner to improve the longevity of this great open source software that is also profitable by both parties.
So just because you had a pain in your arm because YOU bumped it and caused the pain, should you have it removed entirely to spite your body? I mean, that's essentially what they've done here, when there are other remedies and options to make it right for everyone. Instead, they went the lazy route and just decided to amputate.
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@Amodin Best to amputate now, reattach later (maybe).
At this point, I think what the community really needs is some form of commitment from netgate. Trust has been broken. Not easy to rebuild.
"Maybe"'s in a PR usually mean the opposite of preferred outcome. We need definites.
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That's not even remotely.what they said.
Current pfSense CE Users
For those of you currently using pfSense CE, you will not be affected by this change. You can continue to use pfSense CE at no cost, and you will continue to receive updates and security patches as they are made available. This is the ideal solution for home labs that do not require a TAC subscription or frequent updates while experiencing a similar feature set and peace of mind that your network is protected. pfSense CE is a fantastic solution for your home lab or proof of concept (POC) project to see if pfSense Plus might be the right solution for your network security needs.
In otherwords, if you don't know if it's worthwhile to purchase a TAC Pro or Enterprise license and want to develop a proof of concept first, use the CE version since the feature sets are very similar. Also, citation on where Netgate said they are no longer developing CE. People are finding bugs in CE all the time and they are making patches for it.
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@GPz1100 said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
@Amodin Best to amputate now, reattach later (maybe).
At this point, I think what the community really needs is some form of commitment from netgate. Trust has been broken. Not easy to rebuild.
"Maybe"'s in a PR usually mean the opposite of preferred outcome. We need definites.
As I've said above, the correct route would be home licensing models similar to commercial models and not replying on the "we trust you to do the right thing" model. People aren't going to do the right things, for the most part. If it's labeled as "free" they are going to do whatever they can to obtain it and get more of it. It's free after all, right?
If you need limitations in place and still make it available, you moderate it. Home licensing is very much a thing that could really be implemented, along with commercial licensing. I don't understand why this didn't happen to begin with in their production, or even at management level. Auditing of licensing should also be a thing - and it's apparent that audit is either non-existent, or they have it and it's not being used correctly (at all).
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@gisuck said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
That's not even remotely.what they said.
Current pfSense CE Users
For those of you currently using pfSense CE, you will not be affected by this change. You can continue to use pfSense CE at no cost, and you will continue to receive updates and security patches as they are made available. This is the ideal solution for home labs that do not require a TAC subscription or frequent updates while experiencing a similar feature set and peace of mind that your network is protected. pfSense CE is a fantastic solution for your home lab or proof of concept (POC) project to see if pfSense Plus might be the right solution for your network security needs.
In otherwords, if you don't know if it's worthwhile to purchase a TAC Pro or Enterprise license and want to develop a proof of concept first, use the CE version since the feature sets are very similar. Also, citation on where Netgate said they are no longer developing CE. People are finding bugs in CE all the time and they are making patches for it.
Incorrect, it's right there. You aren't even reading it. I think you should stop trying to read it in the reflection of your polished armor.
"pfSense CE is a fantastic solution for your home lab or proof of concept (POC) project to see if pfSense Plus might be the right solution for your network security needs."
What part of that did you not understand? That's exactly what they said.
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@Amodin Please point out the error on the comment I made against that quote? My statement and their statement is exactly the same.
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I believe I've already more than made my case in this debate, I can't be any more clear than what I have been.
Reading their own words isn't enough, me explaining it isn't enough - I don't know what else to tell you, except read it. Then read it again. Then again until you understand it.
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@GPz1100 said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
@Amodin
At this point, I think what the community really needs is some form of commitment from netgate. Trust has been broken. Not easy to rebuild.True!
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"Don't read the words at are exactly printed on their blog. Instead, use my words that I just made up because trust me bro."
I'll pass. This post has devolved into more FUD.
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@gisuck said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
"Don't read the words at are exactly printed on their blog. Instead, use my words that I just made up because trust me bro."
I'll pass. This post has devolved into more FUD.
You're frankly delusional at this point. I literally, LITERALLY copied/pasted their own words from the blog YOU POSTED.
Really? Are you that brain dead that you can't read, but telling me that I made it up? LOL, my God.
I'm done speaking with you about this, you obviously don't/won't get it.
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I asked you the point out the difference between what I stated and what they stated and you couldn't. All you said was read it and read it again after injecting an opinion that's not their. I read it a hundred times. The words on the screen didn't change. What I said and what they said are exactly the same still. Please tell me where I'm wrong.
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@gisuck said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
I asked you the point out the difference between what I stated and what they stated and you couldn't. All you said was read it and read it again after injecting an opinion that's not their. I read it a hundred times. The words on the screen didn't change. What I said and what they said are exactly the same still. Please tell me where I'm wrong.
What is your angle here? Can't you just read a few days of motives as of why almost nobody who switched from CE to Plus at Netgate's hint, want to switch back to CE? Who is spreading the FUD here?
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One problem I have is I won't be able to re-register my Plus home license if I need to rebuild on new hardware, and frankly, I don't know why, but when I initially built it I had to request a license three times before I was able to register my Plus version. This was a big concern even before they withdrew the free home Plus licenses. The registration appears a bit flaky. Also, when I log in I can see the orders but I can't see any registration details, I had expected I would see something like device <x> registered with license <y>. And given these were home/lab licenses I had expected it would say you have requested 4 of 5 maximum licenses. What do Pro and Enterprise users see in their portal - do they see the orders, and devices and licenses associated with those devices?
They should want us to keep using the Plus version as we are an ideal pool of free testers. I'd never expected, as a home Plus user, to get anything other than community support, via the Netgate forums. They have benefitted from taking an open-source product and commercialising it, and obviously added to it, they have built an offering from the hard work of countless contributors who created pfSense, and m0m0wall. I don't understand why you would throw loads of free testers under the bus.
And they should keep CE up-to-date, I understand it has the older version of openSSL, which is now defunct, and they are putting v3 into the next Plus release. There was an idea to register a credit card, to stop people who might want to abuse the free Plus licensing, but that creates a big problem for Netgate who would have to ensure these are stored very securely, if they got hacked they'd have a company-ending situation on their hands. How many licenses should a home-lab email account have? 2, 3, 4, 5? I could do with 2, maybe a max of 3 (one for testing new releases).
Please Netgate don't leave us in limbo, and please don't force us to look elsewhere.
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@gisuck said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
I read it a hundred times.
Really...most of us here read it once or twice...
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@JonathanS said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
How many licenses should a home-lab email account have? 2, 3, 4, 5? I could do with 2, maybe a max of 3 (one for testing new releases).I think 5 licenses for home lab should be more than enough for testing and home use. But it needs to be set up so that we can get a new token while it invalidates the old one in case we have to reinstall or make changes to the hardware with the same netgate hardware ID.
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Here are some news
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@HorstZimmermann Just wiped of some sweat upon seeing...
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@NollipfSense true
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@HorstZimmermann said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
Here are some news
So current pfsense+ users will still get the boot if they are not paying 129 $/year. It doesn't change anything for me. I will wait for the release and if I cannot update, at least I have time to transition to something else. "Good deal" for the coming Black Friday.
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@HorstZimmermann said in Navigating to Buy pfSense +:
Here are some news
Excellent..
This is in line with what was originally promised for commerical use but it is still a rug pull for home and lab.
But it's good to see that cooler heads prevailed. No doubt they did a lot of soul searching over the weekend.
My only criticism is
"*Supply chain attacks. Be wary, be safe."
Sneaking that in at the bottom when there was no evidence of any supply chain attack ever makes it look like "ok home and lab pfsense enthusiasts, for your safety you now need to pay 129 a month because some third party did something."
Not ideal and there be tons of hate here re: that angle this afternoon for sure.
At least this was done at a time where CE and plus have compatible config.xml revisions. Switching back to CE is relatively simple as evidenced by Lawrence Technology's video.
I will place 6 orders for TAC lites where there's a commerical angle to the deployment and (annoyingly) downgrade a few instances to CE.
