Pfsense-tools missing from repository
-
Thank you very much!.
-
It started with the contributor license red tape. Then you go and pull the -tools repo and start wiping threads when some enthusiast guy provides his own bleeding edge images. Why, just why? Makes me wonder - what's next? All this has been badly handled, to put it mildly.
Seems to be a rushed / poorly handled split into a community version and a commercial version, with differences yet-to-be-defined in the feature set between the two.
This post on the devel mailing list explains a lot.
-
Not really sure what to say… When you don't provide any build tools switch to remove the trademarks nonsense, you'd better not accuse people of "misappropriating the trademark". (Note: this outdated rudimentary "howto" does not count as tool. Related rebranding thread.) ::) >:(
Seriously concerned about the heading of this project!!!
-
Sad to see the end coming. I had found this to be a really good project. FreeBSD 8.3 security support ends soon, so for real/audited/… installations they will want to move up to FreeBSD10. That means 2.2, and if 2.2 is just a commercial offering that means some non-ESF people had better get working on how to make a version of this thing (with another name, I guess) run nicely on FreeBSD10, and not using whatever bits of the code ESF claim they have some copyright to (I haven't looked at the detail of that - maybe it has all been published under an OpenSource license and it is just the brand that is copyright?). I had not expected to need to bother about the legal fine-print on this project - everything I had seen up to this point was friendly and co-operative.
I wonder what will be the next thing to be taken off-line without warning? This forum?
Sorry, having a brain dump here, I am not feeling happy about the way this all feels. I have happily contributed in various ways, and am happy to have done that and hopefully helped people and reduced the number of bugs... so everyone benefits. And now the ongoing project turns commercial and shuts things away - I better read the fine print of their new Individual Contributor License Agreement now - https://www.pfsense.org/ESF_Individual_Contributor_License_Agreement.pdf -
Yeah, indeed. Just after I've switched multiple projects from m0n0wall to pfSense because it felt to be more flexible… Now people can have some more fun explaining how much BSD license "rocks" - NOT!
@phil: Should not have any trouble with copyright, just the trademarks BS. (Basically, getting ESF/pfSense logos, names etc. out of the visible code output and not using ESF trademarks for marketing/shipping the product (if applicable). Basically as per the unmaintained rebranding howto.) Nice they have warned people that "T_he best way to accomplish this is to pay the developers to do it for you, because if you haven't done it before, it's extremely time consuming where we can get it done quickly"_ - and then go and complain about "misappropriating the trademark" at the same time and ignore the questions about rebranding posted at the forum. Similar attitude just rocks, wow.
Not impressed in the least… plus wondering whether the guys behind this have given at least a couple of thoughts to things like how much recommendations is the new commercial product likely to get from the abandoned p****d off community. ::)
-
Don't speak too soon, there are plenty of projects running a similar business model successfully. Redhat/Fedora for example. The way I read it there will be a 2.2 community edition it just won't have some of the perks of the commercial distro. The fabled pfCenter perhaps. Anyway this is all speculation until we hear from the project leads.
As an example of how not to do it look at Smoothwall. How many Soothie users switched to pfSense after feeling abandoned? I did.Steve
-
Anyway this is all speculation until we hear from the project leads.
You know, reading more of legal threats like this, I'm not really sure I do care about the project any more.
How do these non-official "clones" help the project?
The balls. Someone nukes the public repo access, goes silent, meanwhile producing some fog about HW migration and related nonsense, and then asks how do forked repo backups "help the project"? What project? "Lets get more money out of this" is not my project. And I suspect it's not a project for lots of volunteer community testers, people who contributed by filing bugs, writing patches or just been hanging out in the forums, providing unpaid support, etc. etc. etc. The forked repos help the people who need to get work done and have deadlines and do not have time to write emails to a blackhole praying for repo access. Someone shows all these people a middle finger salute and then asks how does forking help. WTH! ::)
-
So well, that's pretty much it, guys. You'd better
- get ready to sign some contracts to get access to pfSense-tools repo in the future
- not dare to use it for something that's not "genuine pfSense software" (I guess this is supposed to be something like "Microsoft genuine advantage" program ::))
- not dare to "abuse" these gyus' infrastructure and commit such horrible crimes like continuing to use the ESF repos for packages in case you "fork" your own code. You know, "[p]eople taking without giving back burden the company, and take from the community."
I have - for a long time - been a Linux Mint user. These guys produce nice, polished "forks" of Debian and Ubuntu with some twist, like Mate etc. They even call the Debian-based variant "Linux Mint Debian Edition (LMDE)". And they openly and directly are involved in such "crimes" like "continue to use other resources of the [Debian/Ubuntu] project (such as the package servers, update servers, etc.)". Indeed, you can mix and match freely with whatever Debian/Ubuntu repo. People love it. Heck, I even report most bugs directly to Debian, because that's what the "upstream" for most packages happens to be. I have yet to hear from Debian/Ubuntu about sending "the most polite letter possible via the law firm" to them, with cease and desist threats. I have yet to hear about limiting access to Debian/Ubuntu repos "subject to certain contractual obligations". I have yet to hear about "non-genuine" accusations and trademarks abuse. Everyone can imagine what kind of PR would that cause to Debian/Ubuntu, in case they decided to take similar steps.
Guys, what you have done is completely incompatible with my view of what open source means, and tells one hell of a sad story about how "open" the BSD license is. Next time someone asks you why you should use a BSD style license for your Open Source Project - well, what's going on here gives you the best answer. The license makes it extremely easy to show a middle finger salute to long-term contributors and community in general, should some electric people get upset about someone doing something to "their" baby. So, next time you think about contributing to a BSD-licensed project, maybe just think twice about it. And next time you think about just using a BSD-licensed work for your own purposes, maybe again think twice about it as well.
I don't want to sign contracts to get access to vital build tools. I do not want to sign Contributor License Agreement to be able to contribute. And - oh the irony - being a lawyer by education myself - the last thing I want is to get involved in similar ridiculous actions against people like the poor guy who posted a 2.2 image here on the forum only to be accused by jimp to be "violating … registered trademark ... with an adulterated logo". I guess this guy who produced Hyper-V VHDs will become the next target of jimp's/Netgate's/ Electric Sheep Fencing, LLC's wrath. No matter that it's obvious that he only meant to make life better/easier for those loads of people who wish to run pfSense on a Hyper-V virtual machine, something which the developers miserably failed to deliver for years. Does not matter, "you do not understand trademark law."
Jimp, I actually do. And I am increasingly fed up by the patents, trademarks, copyrights and all that bloated nonsense that no longer contributes to any progress, in fact it hinders it severely. It got completely out of control and any reasonable limits. You indeed have balls when you tell people who "recycled" pfSense software for their own purposes that they are "often doing a poor job" when removing your trademarks. So, to return you the favour: jimp/ESF, you have done one heck of a poor job while documenting it (which you even admitted at the time the docs were written and tried to use to your own advantage offering a paid help with rebranding). As for providing usable tools for the purpose, you miserably failed altogether. Nevertheless, it apparently does not prevent you from accusing people to infringe your trademarks when they publish their own images (in vast majority of cases just for the sole purpose of community testing and improving the product). Instead of investing into lawyers who have been sending "the most polite letters", the money would have better been invested into coding so that pfsense-tools grew itself a –[no|without]-branding switch. Incompatible thinking, right.
Well, enough. This was nice while it lasted. The current direction of the project is not really something I'd want to be involved with and invest my time into. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish.
-
I don't know all the back-story of what happened since I consider myself more like a on-off contributor (when I have the time and need to contribute).
Though by following different OSS projects I've learned to distinguish between trademarks and code:
It's not so uncommon for a project-backing company to protect the name and logos of its project and that they set some rules under which the name can be used.BSDPerimeter and now ESF have already had trademark usage rules and anyone (re-)distributing modified versions would - by those rules - have had to rename the resulting binary product and remove/replace the pfSense logos (both are trademarks). They were mostly OK with those who did so for fun or provided test images for testing a particular functionality they were working on. But when it comes to sell images or products with modified images, things are different, that's when they didn't like it anymore.
Honestly I'm not a enthusiastic about CLAs, but sometimes it better to set up some clear rules under which third-party contributors can bring in their code in (i.e. that they do state their code is theirs and not taken from somewhere else) There are other rather liberally licensed projects (i.e. SmartOS, node.js) that do come with trademark usage rules as well as CLAs, it's not a primer.
And the CLA linked via forums looks not that unreasonable. (i.e. the old Sun Contributor Agreement for OpenSolaris which used copyright transfer, not licensing)P.S. Even FreeBSD is a trademark - of the FreeBSD foundation - and its use is also restricted by terms the foundations sets up, to use the FreeBSD term or the logos you also have to abide by some rules and ask for permission at the foundation. https://www.freebsdfoundation.org/faqs.shtml#FreeBSDTrademarkPermission, reinforcing code != marks
-
What about contaction Manuel Kasper and M0n0wall since Pfsense is based on that?
Then develop what we need for the m0n0 and then forget about the greedy bunch that resides on what others produce ?
-
Hmm, interesting (and worrying) stuff.
@doktornotor, assuming you might come back to read this thread, you have your Jims mixed up. Jim Thompson is who you're referring to whereas JimP (Jim Pingle) is a completely different guy. ;)
Thanks Jim (T) for taking the time to clarify the situation. Obviously there are still many questions but until everything is out in the open it seems pointless speculating.The most important question for me, if you're reading this, is: if there are going to be community and commercial releases what's the difference going to be? Will you be removing features from one or adding features to the other?
I never actually ran the offending 2.2 images that were posted (only because they weren't Nano) so I don't know, was the pfSense logo actually changed in some way? Even if it were I don't believe for a second that the guy who posted them meant to hurt pfSense in any way. Yes, technically, he may have infringed the trademark but it wasn't a malicious attempt to cash in.
There seems to be some confusion over the use of the word 'clone'. I would think (though I have no evidence) that by far the majority of those who cloned the pfSense git repos did so to be able to test a few fixes or add a few features in order to be able to contribute back. Very few of them will have re-branded the distro or in some way rebuilt pfSense for their own ends.
I don't think anyone here would begrudge the owners of pfSense attempting to restrict others using their trademark for profit.
Steve
-
you have your Jims mixed up. Jim Thompson is who you're referring to whereas JimP (Jim Pingle) is a completely different guy. ;)
Indeed. My bad, and apologies.
so I don't know, was the pfSense logo actually changed in some way? Even if it were I don't believe for a second that the guy who posted them meant to hurt pfSense in any way. Yes, technically, he may have infringed the trademark but it wasn't a malicious attempt to cash in.
Nah. AFAICT he used a modified pfSense logo in the thread only, with 2.2 or something similar added. Completely inadequate knee-jerk reaction on the thread, then the thread got deleted in addition, and then all went downhill pretty fast. :(
I would think (though I have no evidence) that by far the majority of those who cloned the pfSense git repos did so to be able to test a few fixes or add a few features in order to be able to contribute back. Very few of them will have re-branded the distro or in some way rebuilt pfSense for their own ends.
Indeed. And, for the latter cases, there seriously is nothing wrong with that when you rebrand it, nothing in the license prevents you from doing so. It's even been offered as a paid service before (see the links to devwiki posted above.)
I don't think anyone here would begrudge the owners of pfSense attempting to restrict others using their trademark for profit.
Of course not. These are cases which should be solved by the "law firm" and "polite letters". However, it has nothing to do with the community in general, and putting red tape over the whole project and wasting community time with nonsense such as contracts to access builds tools repo, or signing some contributor license agreements is way over board for my taste, and just not something I expect from an open-source project. Seriously annoyed and disappointed, There's enough of this crap with commercial closed source SW.
-
Maybe the answer to all this is Sense Foundation ?.
Companies and persons will be free to participate, and the code always free.
The same step of FreeBSD Foundation and trademark in the past. -
This has been addressed more on the dev list by me and others in multiple February and March threads.
http://lists.pfsense.org/pipermail/dev/2014-March/thread.html
http://lists.pfsense.org/pipermail/dev/2014-February/thread.htmlOne complaint here I didn't see addressed there is the contributor agreement. Every open source project that's in solid legal standing has one, we should have a decade ago. Hasn't proven to be a problem thus far, but we don't want to be in a situation where we have to pull or rewrite code because someone makes claims against their past contributions. This is of benefit to the project as a whole, and it's common among significant open source projects.
-
@cmb:
This has been addressed more on the dev list by me and others in multiple February and March threads.
http://lists.pfsense.org/pipermail/dev/2014-March/thread.html
http://lists.pfsense.org/pipermail/dev/2014-February/thread.htmlOne complaint here I didn't see addressed there is the contributor agreement. Every open source project that's in solid legal standing has one, we should have a decade ago. Hasn't proven to be a problem thus far, but we don't want to be in a situation where we have to pull or rewrite code because someone makes claims against their past contributions. This is of benefit to the project as a whole, and it's common among significant open source projects.
Are you going to be pulling the builder related code from that git repository and put the rest back up on git? People need pfPorts for debugging things also what about package builders and understanding that process?
-
Hi,
Somebody has the /home/pfsense 2.1.1 backup ?. gzip…
I porting pfsense to the new pcengines apu motherboard and need customize the kernel.Thanks.
Pascal reported that it "just works". We have it running internally as well.
We are doing some work to enable the LEDs and the sw reset button. -
you have your Jims mixed up. Jim Thompson is who you're referring to whereas JimP (Jim Pingle) is a completely different guy. ;)
Indeed. My bad, and apologies.
To be clear, I am Jim Thompson, and JimP (Pingle) works for ESF as well.
so I don't know, was the pfSense logo actually changed in some way? Even if it were I don't believe for a second that the guy who posted them meant to hurt pfSense in any way. Yes, technically, he may have infringed the trademark but it wasn't a malicious attempt to cash in.
Nah. AFAICT he used a modified pfSense logo in the thread only, with 2.2 or something similar added. Completely inadequate knee-jerk reaction on the thread, then the thread got deleted in addition, and then all went downhill pretty fast. :(
He built something called "pfSense 2.2", used an adulterated logo, and then posted about it in the forum.
I responded asking him to take it down. Someone else (not me, and not cmb) deleted the thread.I would think (though I have no evidence) that by far the majority of those who cloned the pfSense git repos did so to be able to test a few fixes or add a few features in order to be able to contribute back. Very few of them will have re-branded the distro or in some way rebuilt pfSense for their own ends.
Indeed. And, for the latter cases, there seriously is nothing wrong with that when you rebrand it, nothing in the license prevents you from doing so. It's even been offered as a paid service before (see the links to devwiki posted above.)
See? You do understand the issue. Thank you.
I don't think anyone here would begrudge the owners of pfSense attempting to restrict others using their trademark for profit.
Of course not. These are cases which should be solved by the "law firm" and "polite letters". However, it has nothing to do with the community in general, and putting red tape over the whole project and wasting community time with nonsense such as contracts to access builds tools repo, or signing some contributor license agreements is way over board for my taste, and just not something I expect from an open-source project. Seriously annoyed and disappointed, There's enough of this crap with commercial closed source SW.
If you really are trained as a lawyer, you'll more than understand why we need a CLA.
I've already said that I'm trying to restore access to the -tools repo in a way that meets our needs without a contract. That would just be frictional, and a load of work for us. -
Thanks for clearing some things up here Jim.
You've allayed some of my fears, hopefully those of others.
Steve
-
-
Thanks for clearing some things up here Jim.
You've allayed some of my fears, hopefully those of others.
Steve
I'm responding to you, since I've sworn off responding to abusive a-holes like doktornotor.
While it took too long (my bad), the -tools access has been restored. Those who had sent in a ssh-key have been invited to the early rounds, so we could test the system.