Announcing pfSense plus

Rico

Back in the days when I was asked 'what is so great about pfSense?' my answers (sorted in order of importance):

Open Source, you can trust the code 100%
rock stable
really nice feature set
awesome community

Good old times...

-Rico

matsan

Too bad, for us the USP of pfSense was the open source model, knowing there are (at least potentially) multiple and external eyes on the code.
Been supporting the project with both hardware purchases and gold subscriptions during the years. With open source gone the differentiator between our deployed SG-3100:s and the USG from UniFi is lost and we can move to a fully-integrated UniFi experience that is another closed-source-trust-the-company-running-it-relationship.

Wishing you best of luck. So long and thank you for all the years!

Vollans

@rico said in Announcing pfSense plus:

2x Netgate XG-7100 | 11x Netgate SG-5100 | 6x Netgate SG-3100 | 2x Netgate SG-1100

Surely Netgate have to be nervous when someone who has over 20 devices and has been a big supporter of those is worried?

I’m only a new convert to pfSense, as of about July, but the fact it was open source was a big thing as I was fed up of hardware that had rubbish firewalls that promised lots and delivered nothing with unresponsive support that ignored requests to fix things. I did almost buy your hardware just after Christmas, but decided to wait. I’m glad I did. :(

Cool_Corona

Just to make things clear....

Currently testing freebsd based FW's for the foreign state department here and closed source is a no go.

They have issues with the US spying on live traffic thats encrypted. So it can be done...

And I will always, on a personal level, run MiTM and not make anybody beeing able ro run anything other than the DNS provided.

Exordium

@dennis_s said in Announcing pfSense plus:

Read our latest blog which includes a FAQ to learn more about this exciting change.

I can't see anything exciting in this post... only stupid decisions.

Just my 0,02$

Bob.Dig

I am ok with it, if there is a full free version for home use, because I don't think that those people will pay for a firewall in the first place... unless it becomes a full-fledged WiFi-router. Pls don't.

JeGr

@bob-dig said in Announcing pfSense plus:

I am ok with it, if there is a full free version for home use, because I don't think that those people will pay for a firewall in the first place... unless it becomes a full-fledged WiFi-router. Pls don't.

Free version doesn't equal OSS version and for many projects that reach out about ditching other vendors in favor of pfSense, that IS one of the - if not THE - main incentive. So while free version for home use is fine, that does nothing for planning bigger projects at the moment. And because of the "we don't know yet" throughout the FAQ/blog post in terms of 3rd party HW, licensing, costs and future of the CE version, that is an almost impossible sell at the moment for any new project that goes on right now or in the following weeks. Because no company wants a solution that will change course, get stale in the future or other fears that already have been laid out.

noplan

@jegr

as far as I am concerned

It is as informed as possible about this

**
It is an impossible sell**

behemyth

I completely understand the free-to-use community being frustrated by the move to close-source a product and charge for full-featured software, but I can tell you from my years working with companies to build solutions, there are a lot of companies out there that aren't allowed to use open source anything.

I don't agree with that thinking, but it is what it is in the business world.

This may make a lot of people who aren't paying anyway stop using this platform, but this is going to open another set of doors for pfSense, ones that simply don't exist under an open source code model - and those doors are going to be willing to pay - potentially a lot of money for support and to use the software.

I'm not trying to start a huge argument here, that's just fact.

noplan

@behemyth

cant agree more !

heaven and hell are two windows in the same house, or something like that

brNP

fbor

@dennis_s

I have chosen pfSense a few years ago to have firewalls on which I can do whatever I need. To support Netgate and the project, I have bought about 20 appliances, mostly sg-3100. On several occasions, pfSense has proven to be a perfect choice for my needs. I have been able with some lines of code to implement custom functions and to patch all the required appliances. Also, I have invested a lot of my free time to create and contribute to ansible modules to manage our pfSense fleet and was eagerly waiting for the GUI/control code separation.

Now, since sg-3100 runs on ARM, I won't be able to run pfSense CE on them. So, to keep an open-source platform, the only choice I have is to stay forever on the last pfSense FE release. The other choice would be to go close source with pfSense plus and hope for the best (no script obfuscation ever, no closed source patches on binaries I may need to patch and build). It looks like two dead-ends to me. And I feel fooled: it wouldn't have happened to me if I hadn't decided to support Netgate and become a customer.

Anyway, I saw the argument "pfSense plus is something more, not less" multiple times on Reddit. Given my situation, I disagree: dropping pfSense FE and the open-source model for customers is definitly something less.

noplan

@dennis_s

i only can tell you the same as i told @behemyth

heaven and hell are the same house with different windows

and no i'm not an evangelist but i see dark times commin for pfSce

New blog post concerning these changes:

https://www.netgate.com/blog/pfsense-plus-pfsense-ce-dev-insights-direction.html

One change I noticed is the availability of pfSense + for non-Netgate hardware is now late 2021. I'm not sure if that is an actual change in Netgate's internal planning or just the author being careful to not over promise.

@jwj Can't edit so...

This is from the FAQ (as of 1-27-21):

"Today, pfSense Plus 21.02 is only available on Netgate appliances, AWS, and Azure platforms.

We plan to make pfSense Plus available for use on 3rd party hardware and select virtual machines by June 2021, if not sooner.

There will be a no charge path for home and lab use and a chargeable version for commercial use."

and in today's blog:

"The good news is that we also plan to make pfSense Plus available to work on non-Netgate hardware in late 2021, not just our appliances, and we plan to make the licensing of pfSense Plus completely free for home, hobby, and lab use."

kiokoman

@jwj
there is "only" a new gui written on Go and clixon May or September it's not important for me. 2.6CE is still planned
In the past, a release was made “when it’s ready” <- (he is stealing Jimp's motto )
There will be CE releases after 2.6, but unlike Plus, they’ll be done when they’re ready, not on a regular cadence.
Scott Long ( welcome ) was reassuring somehow

slu

@kiokoman said in Announcing pfSense plus:

There will be CE releases after 2.6, but unlike Plus, they’ll be done when they’re ready, not on a regular cadence.

Works for Debian perfect ;)

What's the benefit for the community of these changes exactly?

Inxsible

I installed pfSense for a friend at his home. However he also runs 2 businesses from his home. How would the new licensing apply to him?

Will he be able to upgrade to pfSense+ without paying (since it's his home)? Or would he have to buy a pfSense+ licence given that he runs 2 businesses from his home?

johnpoz

None of that info has been put out yet.

But lets use a little common sense here - will these 2 bushiness he runs out of his home need the + features of pfsense? Will he need say "Zero Touch Provisioning for easier drop ship of unprovisioned appliances" ?

Will maybe need business level dashboard for all of his installs?

Will he maybe need "GUI / device control separation, which facilitates multi-instance management"

He will get + if he has an appliance - but some of these other so called features may need to be "licensed"

No costing model has been even hinted at yet..

Cool_Corona

@johnpoz

Question. Will it be up to you to decide what scenario he wants?

Its up to the user. Not to vendor to decide what the user needs or wants.