Upstream downstream projects confusion?
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What I don't get is this:
If pfS+ is the downstream project and pfS CE is upstream, shouldn't the upstream project be released first?
???
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And also, pfSense CE should have more frequent releases to test changes before being released in a pfSense Plus update.
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I'm asking myself the same questions, currently I'm on 23.09 and Netgate material.
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I don't believe you can properly consider CE as "upstream". The two (CE and Plus) have now diverged a bit, and that divergence is likely to continue widening. Consider that Plus has Boot Environments and CE does not. Plus now has MAC address filtering, but CE does not. And there are other changes in Plus that are not now in CE.
Think about it from a common sense economic point of view -- if I put all my features in CE and offer it for free as an "upstream test platform", then how can I reasonably expect to have paying customers for the same thing in the "downstream production platform" (pfSense Plus)? I will go broke quickly
. Any potential paying customers will just continue to use the "free" CE upstream testing version.The "upstream platform" is the development branch of each respective version. So, there is at the moment 2.8 CE DEVEL, and there is also a 24.03 Plus DEVEL.
Before saying this, I will reiterate that I am not a Netgate employee, I do not possess any inside information, nor am I affiliated with them in any way other than as a volunteer package maintainer -- but I think folks need to come to terms with the fact that CE development is going to eventually take a back seat to Plus. Plus is where the money comes from, not CE. And as mentioned above, CE and Plus have already diverged in features. I expect that to continue. Therefore it's not reasonable to use CE as a development platform for Plus.
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@bmeeks said in Upstream downstream projects confusion?:
Before saying this, I will reiterate that I am not a Netgate employee, I do not possess any inside information, nor am I affiliated with them in any way other than as a volunteer package maintainer -- but I think folks need to come to terms with the fact that CE development is going to eventually take a back seat to Plus. Plus is where the money comes from, not CE. And as mentioned above, CE and Plus have already diverged in features. I expect that to continue. Therefore it's not reasonable to use CE as a development platform for Plus.
Dont say this on Reddit. The pitchforks will come out
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@michmoor said in Upstream downstream projects confusion?:
@bmeeks said in Upstream downstream projects confusion?:
Before saying this, I will reiterate that I am not a Netgate employee, I do not possess any inside information, nor am I affiliated with them in any way other than as a volunteer package maintainer -- but I think folks need to come to terms with the fact that CE development is going to eventually take a back seat to Plus. Plus is where the money comes from, not CE. And as mentioned above, CE and Plus have already diverged in features. I expect that to continue. Therefore it's not reasonable to use CE as a development platform for Plus.
Dont say this on Reddit. The pitchforks will come out
I do not have a Reddit account. Probably one of the perks of being an "old fart now".
While I would love to see CE continue just as it always has, I can still fully understand the economic and business side of any decision to pare back one and concentrate more on the other that brings in revenue. Being dependent solely on selling hardware can be tough I suspect as that is a commodity cut-throat pricing market-- especially with all the cheap Asian knock-offs that show up. Having software to go with your hardware gives you a value-add so to speak.
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@bmeeks
Say no more. The move to a software model that you have to pay for and has exclusive features is the only thing that makes sense.
I understand the hangups people have on the whole CE vs Plus debate and i certainly understand how the messaging on that may have rubbed folks the wrong way but people need to understand that it costs money to make money.
