Announcing pfSense plus

JeGr

@impatient said in Announcing pfSense plus:

@dennis_s The main reason netgate seem's to be moving away from the community and more
into closed source.
About the same as sophos and other's have done.

If you think so you have completely skipped the part where it states that a) they don't go closed source and b) what big contributions they've already made and continue to make to the OSS community and the upstream projects they are using. I'd like to see such from Sophos and others. Or them to emplay developers for e.g. FreeBSD or DPDK so they can work fulltime on those things. Or how about putting hundreds of hours of development not in WG for pfSense but WG in FreeBSD so all other projects working with FreeBSD can grab that code now, too? Just sayin...

I'm inclined to feel good about this. Two reasons.

Netgate has earned some trust based on the no cost services they offered in support of remote users to meet the challenges of the pandemic. If they sold some appliances as a result of that it was well earned and well spent (see #2)
Netgate has put considerable resources into FreeBSD development. Including hiring (there is a post, somewhere here on the forum) staff dedicated to that purpose. We have all benefited from that and will continue to get that benefit regardless of the version of pfsense used.

johnpoz

OLD news ;) hehehe

Waiting for Reddit and Twitter to blow up with the "told you so" posts - they are getting rid of the free versions ;)

I see the non readers already making nonsense statements

I'm assuming this means:

    pfSense+ is Linux-based

    pfSense CE will remain BSD-based

serbus

Hello!

chargeable version for commercial use

When will pricing info be available for Pfsense+ on 3rd party hardware?

Thanks!

John

gabacho4

@serbus did you even read the blog post? Answer is there.

@serbus I've not seen any information concerning pricing. It's going to be Netgate HW and Cloud service only initially, June time frame for 3rd party as best I can tell, so they have some time to determine that.

@gabacho4 I think he's asking about commercial use. It's a valid question.

gabacho4

@jwj yeha sorry there. I'll eat some crow. I thought I had seen a mention about pricing. I evidently need to read the blog post better.

@gabacho4 :) I did go back and re-read the blog and the FAQ myself just in case I needed to eat some crow... It's all good!

dennis_s

@serbus Pricing has not been set, but when it is finalized we will announce via our normal channels and most likely a blog.

Longreen

@dennis_s will the no charge version for home and lab use be "crippled" in any way compared to commercial version ? ( ie max bandwidth supported on throughout etc) or less features ?

dennis_s

@longreen No...Full-featured version.

Jeremy11one

I think it's important for everyone to know about these 2 things from the FAQ page:

***Q: So there are no more new releases from the project?
A: That is really up to how the project progresses itself, separate and distinct from Netgate... If the community chooses to progress feature set, testing, documentation, and release packaging, there will obviously be progression beyond Release 2.5.

Q: Is pfSense Plus open source?
A: No. pfSense Plus is closed source.

One of the big benefits of pfSense was that it is open source. Even though the upgrade to pfSense Plus is expected to be free for home users, I'm torn about whether to "upgrade" to the newer closed source version or stay with the open source CE version.

dennis_s

@jeremy11one Would love to know your thoughts around that.

johnpoz

@dennis_s

That is really up to how the project progresses itself, separate and distinct from Netgate - which is a company with its own products. If the community chooses to progress feature set, testing, documentation, and release packaging, there will obviously be progression beyond Release 2.5. Netgate will continue to participate both as a community member, and as project steward.

That wording really sounds like pfsense CE could just die off.. I don't like that wording at all.. And prob going to throw up the most red flags to the community at large..

Jeremy11one

@dennis_s said in Announcing pfSense plus:

@jeremy11one Would love to know your thoughts around that.

I use pfSense at home on a 3rd party machine, at church on 3rd party, and at work with 2 official Netgate devices. I really appreciate what Netgate has done with the project and think they've improved the world with their donations to open source pfSense.

The first Q&A I referenced sounds like pfSense CE will depend on community developers going forward. Netgate wrote that future "releases" and "progression" will happen "if the community chooses to progress" "separate from Netgate". It kind of contradicts what Netgate wrote in several other places, so maybe the answer to that Q was just not written as clearly as intended. If it's true though, we all know how it goes with most open source projects when their primary developers leave - the projects die. Netgate is 100% entitled to earn profits and they have no obligation to continue donating to pfSense as they used to, but it's still sad that the biggest contributors to pfSense are hinting that they're moving on.

As to the closed source QA, I think many IT people would agree that being open source is important for security products. So upgrading to the new Plus version to get its benefits is tempting, but so is staying with the old CE and hoping that some other organization picks it up to carry the torch for a while like Netgate used to.

Again, I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out these QAs on the Netgate FAQ that jumped out at me when I read them. Those things are more clear on the FAQ than on the press release.

Jeremy11one

@johnpoz said in Announcing pfSense plus:

@dennis_s

That is really up to how the project progresses itself, separate and distinct from Netgate - which is a company with its own products. If the community chooses to progress feature set, testing, documentation, and release packaging, there will obviously be progression beyond Release 2.5. Netgate will continue to participate both as a community member, and as project steward.

That wording really sounds like pfsense CE could just die off.. I don't like that wording at all.. And prob going to throw up the most red flags to the community at large..

Exactly. The wording definitely looks like Netgate is leaving all future progression of open source pfSense, its features, testing, documentation, and release packing up to the community after 2.5. Though I realize several of the other FAQs hinted otherwise, that Netgate would at least do bug fixes and things in CE and would only move the majority of their effort to Plus. Which still isn't great for the future of CE, but it's better than nothing.

slu

@jeremy11one
unfortunately, for me it look like to the same.

We support pfSense/Netgate with the gold membership years ago, use it on our own hardware and buy Netgate appliances.

@dennis_s
it would be great to see the gold membership back to support an CE edition!

JeGr

@johnpoz said in Announcing pfSense plus:

That wording really sounds like pfsense CE could just die off.. I don't like that wording at all.. And prob going to throw up the most red flags to the community at large..

I agree! Sounds like "either community takes over the job or it will die slowly when no new updates from Plus will get downported".

dennis_s

Will try to address this the best I can

As stated in the blog we will continue to provide updates to CE around security vulnerability protection, FreeBSD related updates, common code, etc. So pfSense users are free to stay on pfSense CE, particularly if they place a premium on openness.

At the same time, our customers are asking for newer, greater value. We will deliver. But, through a Netgate product, with Netgate value-add meant for Netgate customers. In addition, we will also provide this value to home and lab users at no cost. As everyone knows, it's certainly not free for us to build products. We think a value-exchange is fair.

While no one is forced to become a customer, we do welcome all who choose to become one.