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    What's up with the "Community Edition" on the logo?

    Scheduled Pinned Locked Moved Off-Topic & Non-Support Discussion
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    • L
      LFCavalcanti
      last edited by

      Honest question…

      If there's only one version of pfSense, why call it community edition?

      Personal Opinion now:
      Someone commented before that hardware sold from the store or from Netgate comes with a tweaked version, to get more out of the hardware, that's great, but wouldn't be better to brand that version as "pfSense Optmized", for example?

      And please, no unnecessary aggression on replies.

      –

      Luiz Fernando Cavalcanti
      IT Manager
      Arriviera Technology Group

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      • H
        heper
        last edited by

        https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=108822.0

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • M
          MontTech
          last edited by

          Easy fix for this….....Buy the hardware from the project.........Supports, ya know.  ;D

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • L
            LFCavalcanti
            last edited by

            @MontTech:

            Easy fix for this….....Buy the hardware from the project.........Supports, ya know.  ;D

            Well, I would if the cost considering currency exchange and taxes wasn't so heavy… anything I buy from their store would automatically get 5-6x more expensive. Brasil ladies and gentleman.

            Side note... not everyone contributes with money in this kind of Open Source Project... it's a community effort... the very fact anyone who is an IT Pro is talking positively about pfSense grants better PR, more confidence in the solution, thus potential customers for ESF.

            –

            Luiz Fernando Cavalcanti
            IT Manager
            Arriviera Technology Group

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • L
              LFCavalcanti
              last edited by

              @heper:

              https://forum.pfsense.org/index.php?topic=108822.0

              Yeah… I saw this thread when Jimp quoted it to me... but I had already posted this thread at that point.

              –

              Luiz Fernando Cavalcanti
              IT Manager
              Arriviera Technology Group

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • ?
                Guest
                last edited by

                If there's only one version of pfSense, why call it community edition?

                In former days, there where two camps and one was asking for hardware made by pfSense itself
                and the other camp was not interested in doing that because they were though that then this project
                perhaps will be going to commercial! On top of this you may think there are some developers and this
                is there life to hire at a burger diner to have enough free time to serve us, please note that is not there
                willing and thinking of future (only self my opinion about that). And the jump from 2.1.5 to version 2.2
                was at the cost of nearly ~$90.000 as I am right informed about that cost. But we have had also a world
                wide crisis and during that the most peoples must also have a look, likes you ;), on their budget and the
                normally donations where falling back, so what to do now? Kicking the project? Doing some other stuff?

                Why not selling their own hardware and getting money for that units to support their own project?

                Personal Opinion now:
                Someone commented before that hardware sold from the store or from Netgate comes with a tweaked version, to get more out of the hardware, that's great,….

                You will be only able to tweak, tune or pimp as you will knowing that hardware exactly!!!!!!
                Without that knowledge you will never know on what pfSense will be installed and all that tunings and tweaks
                where 100% hardware related or based, so they can only be done if they (the development team) is surely
                knowing the hardware. From where they should know your next hardware basis? They can´t and if they
                can´t know that they will be also not able to tune something right that is according and matching your
                hardware basis. Thats it, simple, not really fine, but the true.

                but wouldn't be better to brand that version as "pfSense Optmized", for example?

                Why? For sure there will be more then one way to solve that out or handle this case, but if they do
                something like you are suggesting here, I am pretty sure another user would be asking today why
                this was not named community version and ADI version. And on top of this the jump from 2.1.5 to
                the version 2.2 and now from 2.2.x to 2.3 is coming surely with a huge amount of work for them
                besides and then often something likes the name for this or that was fast given to that other edition.

                Well, I would if the cost considering currency exchange and taxes wasn't so heavy… anything I buy from their store would automatically get 5-6x more expensive. Brasil ladies and gentleman.

                There are many firewall distros on the market, but turn a computer into a fully UTM unit what means
                also saving much money for licenses is available for free of charge to download for any person in the
                world. What should the do now on top of this in your opinion? Other projects were jumping on the
                payed APPs or the payed plugin train, likes Untangle UTM, Sophos UTM and ClearOS, but not pfSense
                it is still free of charge and is able to use for the private and business usage. What more we need?

                Side note… not everyone contributes with money in this kind of Open Source Project... it's a community effort... the very fact anyone who is an IT Pro is talking positively about pfSense grants better PR, more confidence in the solution, thus potential customers for ESF.

                I am pretty sure that we have the luck that all are talking about that project and I am very pleased that ESF,
                Netgate and others are spending time and money for that project, for sure also to push up their companies too,
                but this is in business not really bad as I see it right, it is more common. Let us imagine you will be in Brazil
                and serve the entire government with pfSense boxes for a very small budget, is this not really good for you?

                Why must it be more then that? I really think that we can be proud about that project that we will be sorted
                with software that is using the latest hardware very well likes, netmap-fwd, Intel QAT, AES-NI, good and fast
                driver support for the newest hardware types and parts and so on and so on.

                If the developers from pfSense and their sponsors like Netgate or ESF behind all of that will be get a
                benefit from all that work and they know their own hardware they are selling and for sure they will then
                also be able to tune it right likes they want there will be nothing wrong with. How is saying that you are
                not able to tune your hardware fine pending on their skills and capabilities? The pfSense DOC´s are free
                of charge too and open to read by everyone, so we all get also chance to tune our platforms right we need
                it. And if not, there will be on top of this the way to get payed support to do so. Only my 2 cents on this.

                Some lines will be perhaps sounding strange, but it wasn´t in my intense, its more related to my poor
                english language skills. Sorry for that.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • P
                  phil.davis
                  last edited by

                  I think the "community edition" on the logo is just so that it is easy to quickly distinguish versions when people are asking for support. If every version has some explicit thing in the name/logo in addition to "pfSense" then that makes it easy for users to see.\

                  There is no "downgrading"or "dumbing-down" of the community version.

                  As the Greek philosopher Isosceles used to say, "There are 3 sides to every triangle."
                  If I helped you, then help someone else - buy someone a gift from the INF catalog http://secure.inf.org/gifts/usd/

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • L
                    LFCavalcanti
                    last edited by

                    @BlueKobold:

                    In former days, there where two camps and one was asking for hardware made by pfSense itself
                    and the other camp was not interested in doing that because they were though that then this project
                    perhaps will be going to commercial! On top of this you may think there are some developers and this
                    is there life to hire at a burger diner to have enough free time to serve us, please note that is not there
                    willing and thinking of future (only self my opinion about that). And the jump from 2.1.5 to version 2.2
                    was at the cost of nearly ~$90.000 as I am right informed about that cost. But we have had also a world
                    wide crisis and during that the most peoples must also have a look, likes you ;), on their budget and the
                    normally donations where falling back, so what to do now? Kicking the project? Doing some other stuff?

                    Why not selling their own hardware and getting money for that units to support their own project?

                    Look, you've taken my question as a "challenge" to their view, that's not the case… I want to know what their plans are because of that change in the logo, there's a difference there, if you understood that, might had saved you a lot of time writing this essay of yours.

                    As for them selling their own Hardware... I'm not only in favor of that, but I also think they should implement an "official" certification program, perhaps similar to what Zabbix is doing.

                    @BlueKobold:

                    You will be only able to tweak, tune or pimp as you will knowing that hardware exactly!!!!!!
                    Without that knowledge you will never know on what pfSense will be installed and all that tunings and tweaks
                    where 100% hardware related or based, so they can only be done if they (the development team) is surely
                    knowing the hardware. From where they should know your next hardware basis? They can´t and if they
                    can´t know that they will be also not able to tune something right that is according and matching your
                    hardware basis. Thats it, simple, not really fine, but the true.

                    I'll assume you're talking about how better is to test and mold pfSense around a specific hardware to get more out of it… I mean, that was exactly what I said with the "that's great!" part... I was just talking about the "names"... not the finality of it.

                    @BlueKobold:

                    Why? For sure there will be more then one way to solve that out or handle this case, but if they do
                    something like you are suggesting here, I am pretty sure another user would be asking today why
                    this was not named community version and ADI version. And on top of this the jump from 2.1.5 to
                    the version 2.2 and now from 2.2.x to 2.3 is coming surely with a huge amount of work for them
                    besides and then often something likes the name for this or that was fast given to that other edition.

                    Yeah, I can see your point… again that's why I stated it was my personal opinion... maybe if they actually included an explanation on their blog digests about the naming, no one would need to ask.

                    @BlueKobold:

                    There are many firewall distros on the market, but turn a computer into a fully UTM unit what means
                    also saving much money for licenses is available for free of charge to download for any person in the
                    world. What should the do now on top of this in your opinion? Other projects were jumping on the
                    payed APPs or the payed plugin train, likes Untangle UTM, Sophos UTM and ClearOS, but not pfSense
                    it is still free of charge and is able to use for the private and business usage. What more we need?

                    WE users of pfSense know that… but the market doesn't share our view. Take a look on the Spiceworks forum for example, it's plagued with paid solutions... we even had an ESF agent there, but it's been a while since I last saw her around.
                    Paid solutions, like Sonicwall and the like have strong marketing behind them... I proved for people time and time again that buying from the pfSense store and hiring ESF's support is miles chaper than paid solutions... it's a war really and you know... war... wat never changes.

                    @BlueKobold:

                    I am pretty sure that we have the luck that all are talking about that project and I am very pleased that ESF,
                    Netgate and others are spending time and money for that project, for sure also to push up their companies too,
                    but this is in business not really bad as I see it right, it is more common. Let us imagine you will be in Brazil
                    and serve the entire government with pfSense boxes for a very small budget, is this not really good for you?

                    I don't understand what you mean… are you asking if pfSense is amazing? If so... YES IT IS!

                    I never do "knee jerking" to any company in any project... specially for open source projects... there's a fine balance between reputation and arrogance. No Open Source project can grow without a thriving community. Some developers forget that and turn the ship back, like Zimbra... Alfresco and others did.(vYatta another example).

                    @BlueKobold:

                    Why must it be more then that? I really think that we can be proud about that project that we will be sorted
                    with software that is using the latest hardware very well likes, netmap-fwd, Intel QAT, AES-NI, good and fast
                    driver support for the newest hardware types and parts and so on and so on.

                    Well, no one here is questioning the solution that pfSense is.

                    @BlueKobold:

                    If the developers from pfSense and their sponsors like Netgate or ESF behind all of that will be get a
                    benefit from all that work and they know their own hardware they are selling and for sure they will then
                    also be able to tune it right likes they want there will be nothing wrong with. How is saying that you are
                    not able to tune your hardware fine pending on their skills and capabilities? The pfSense DOC´s are free
                    of charge too and open to read by everyone, so we all get also chance to tune our platforms right we need
                    it. And if not, there will be on top of this the way to get payed support to do so. Only my 2 cents on this.

                    I never said I can't tune pfSense to a hardware… that doesn't have anything to what I'm saying here... I clearly said I find a great thing that they are tuning their certified hardware to get better performance.

                    One thing I find very disturbing in your comments is the notion that seems you think ESF own the pfSense as a whole, sure they are the ones who contributed more to it's development, they own the "brand and trademark" of pfSense, but the code is a mix of a lot of effort from other people on the FreeBSD project and a significant portion of the packages everyone use in pfSense are result of community members working with ESF.

                    I've seen some strange decisions from them regarding the collaboration... the CLA is perfectly fine, but people like Marcelloc, JackL, Luiz Gustavo and lot others try to collaborate, but ESF tends to create more walls than bridges. The entire repository is badly documented, the source files have little comments... when someone wants to deploy a new package on the repo, they have to figure out by them selves where things are and even with the package written, ESF some times refuse altogether to deploy the package, be it by a supposed commercial interest that their customers don't have or lack of time to review the code.

                    It's a paradox really... they complained more than often about the majority of pull requests merged being from their own team, while they don't collaborate with the community and when the community delivers something almost done, they refuse.

                    I see them getting more "mature" on this aspect, but in the other hand, every turn they're calling the whole of pfSense something being owned by them... it sure is if no one else is allowed to "openly" collaborate.

                    That's why I found odd the "community edition" on the logo, sure someone from ESF will post here saying I'm spreading FUD and nonsense... whatever, that's not what I want. It's constructive criticism, something people have forgotten apparently.

                    @BlueKobold:

                    Some lines will be perhaps sounding strange, but it wasn´t in my intense, its more related to my poor
                    english language skills. Sorry for that.

                    I tried my best to understand what you've said… if I misunderstood something, people clarify.

                    –

                    Luiz Fernando Cavalcanti
                    IT Manager
                    Arriviera Technology Group

                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • L
                      librarymark
                      last edited by

                      I am not impressed. I am always wary of an open-source project that re-brands part of itself a "community edition". It's been evident in my 25+ year of IT experience that whenever a project does this, it signals the start of a decline in their dedication to open source.  Not at all happy to see it happen and while I love pfsense, I will now sadly be forced to waste some time keeping an eye out for alternatives just in case things go sour.

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • H
                        Harvy66
                        last edited by

                        @librarymark:

                        I am not impressed. I am always wary of an open-source project that re-brands part of itself a "community edition". It's been evident in my 25+ year of IT experience that whenever a project does this, it signals the start of a decline in their dedication to open source.  Not at all happy to see it happen and while I love pfsense, I will now sadly be forced to waste some time keeping an eye out for alternatives just in case things go sour.

                        OMG, not more transparency! They already had multiple versions tweaked out of the box for their custom hardware, then a general CE version with decent defaults for general hardware. This helps reduce confusion. It signals nothing. They're doing more opensource contributions now than ever, and much more so than many other projects. Anyway, nothing lasts forever. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

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                        • F
                          fholzer
                          last edited by

                          well, in 5 Years Opensense could be an alternative (to 2.3 ? ^^)

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • ?
                            Guest
                            last edited by

                            well, in 5 Years Opensense could be an alternative (to 2.3 ? ^^)

                            Because they have an OpenSource version what pfSense is also offering?
                            And with the pfSense version 2.4 also OpenVPN 2.4 and QAT will be perhaps in the game.

                            I would pay for packets as a plugin system to get even the newest ones and if this might be
                            something around $5 or 5 € for each packet it would not be so hard for us but helps to get
                            very fast the latest actual packets likes FreeRadius 3.0 and so on. Why not? Some for free
                            and some as payed version would be not only bad as I see it right. ClearOS and Untangle
                            or Sophos UTM will do same and walk through the road and are fine with this.

                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • L
                              librarymark
                              last edited by

                              @Harvy66:

                              @librarymark:

                              I am not impressed. I am always wary of an open-source project that re-brands part of itself a "community edition". It's been evident in my 25+ year of IT experience that whenever a project does this, it signals the start of a decline in their dedication to open source.  Not at all happy to see it happen and while I love pfsense, I will now sadly be forced to waste some time keeping an eye out for alternatives just in case things go sour.

                              OMG, not more transparency! They already had multiple versions tweaked out of the box for their custom hardware, then a general CE version with decent defaults for general hardware. This helps reduce confusion. It signals nothing. They're doing more opensource contributions now than ever, and much more so than many other projects. Anyway, nothing lasts forever. Enjoy the ride while it lasts.

                              I was not confused before. Not sure what confusion you are referring to.

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • M
                                MontTech
                                last edited by

                                What's the big deal?  You guys have access to an incredible security appliance for FREE!  If they want to do a special version that's optimized for their hardware, to sell and make a few bucks on that great!  I bet the ones complaining are the same people that are voting for Bernie.

                                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • KOMK
                                  KOM
                                  last edited by

                                  I bet the ones complaining are the same people that are voting for Bernie.

                                  ???

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • ?
                                    Guest
                                    last edited by

                                    @MontTech:

                                    What's the big deal?  You guys have access to an incredible security appliance for FREE!  If they want to do a special version that's optimized for their hardware, to sell and make a few bucks on that great!  I bet the ones complaining are the same people that are voting for Bernie.

                                    Who the F*** is "Bernie"?

                                    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • KOMK
                                      KOM
                                      last edited by

                                      Who the F*** is "Bernie"?

                                      The only person running for U.S. President that isn't completely owned, top to bottom.

                                      http://www.berniesanders.com/

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • ?
                                        Guest
                                        last edited by

                                        @KOM:

                                        Who the F*** is "Bernie"?

                                        The only person running for U.S. President that isn't completely owned, top to bottom.

                                        http://www.berniesanders.com/

                                        Ahh thanks for that I vote for Mrs. Clinton.

                                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • M
                                          MontTech
                                          last edited by

                                          I rest my case…

                                          sanders.jpg
                                          sanders.jpg_thumb

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • N
                                            NOYB
                                            last edited by

                                            @KOM:

                                            Who the F*** is "Bernie"?

                                            The only person running for U.S. President that isn't completely owned, top to bottom.

                                            http://www.berniesanders.com/

                                            Seriously?  Not hardly.  He's just totally owned by a different group.  Do you know who they are?

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