Announcing pfSense plus

fbor

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.

al

@jwj thanks for sharing the link to the updated post!

Unfortunately Scott does not tell why pfSense Plus cannot be open source too so the users are able to trust the code.
Also pfSense CE will slowly fall behind - well that is my interpretation of Scott's words:

...Where does that leave the pfSense CE releases? This is a burning question for our users, and for good reason. The pfSense community has been good to us, and we wouldn’t exist without it. In return, we’ve done our best to be good stewards in the community, both in terms of providing resources and in terms of our open source code commitment. We’re already planning a pfSense CE 2.6 release in mid-2021. We’re still fully participating in the open source communities that make up the foundation of pfSense, and we’re still driving that code upstream and into the open. This isn’t going away, but it is going to evolve as our code in pfSense Plus evolves. ....

It can be interpreted in more ways - like they would like to evolve/extend driving code upstream, but it can also be interpreted as pfSense CE is not going to get updates forever.
So a clear statement about whether the changes related to the new middleware and new GUI eventually will go into pfSense CE (open source) would make people happy in respect to continuing using pfSense...

johnpoz

@cool_corona said in Announcing pfSense plus:

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

When has that ever been the case? If he has no need for any of the stuff that will be part of + he can just use CE.

Is he even using netgate appliances?

Cool_Corona

@johnpoz

But it doesnt matter....

Its irrelevant.

He is using OSS as a choice. If he is limited by any means by turning OSS into closed source, then he will run away or use a another vendor with a better feature set.

As I stated. The foreign Department here has denied use of closed for a reason.

So has many users and contributors over the years.

I have been a part of the user base since Manuel Kasper and M0n0wall.

There is no doubt that people will turn to other vendors offering OSS aplliances.

johnpoz

Where have they stated that their appliances will not run CE if they want?

My point was towards, if he is not running an appliance now - then plus is quite a bit off.. + when it first comes out is only going to be for appliances.

Won't even have the choice to run + on his own hardware for some time.. So its a bit early in the game to get all worked up over anything.

@cool_corona said in Announcing pfSense plus:

He is using OSS as a choice. If he is limited by any means by turning OSS into closed source, then he will run away or use a another vendor with a better feature set.

What FOSS solution has a better feature set/stability than pfSense? I added stability because that matters to me...

Look, that way I read this is: The amount of work that needs to be done to advance pfSense, rewrite the GUI and remove bottlenecks, will require significant investment. Netgate needs to be able to pay for that. If the community wants to do that and keep all of it FOSS they should do that and create a fork immediately.

Cool_Corona

@jwj Isnt this what Gold subscriptions is for??

@cool_corona Was. I bought in, twice. I suppose not enough did to pay the bills.

In an ideal world none of this would be talked about. It's not an ideal world. Programmers, project managers and support people need to get paid. FOSS projects need commercial support and funding.

We'll see how things go. There is time. I don't see this like Ubiquiti, no one is violating licenses and sucking capital out of the business. It may yet end up being a win for all concerned. Fingers crossed. If not, we'll just have to adjust and move on.

Cool_Corona

@jwj Its the worlds must trusted OS firewall as Netgate states it....

There should be a userbase large enough to support Netgate and the staff.

Otherwise the value proposition is not good enough.

@cool_corona said in Announcing pfSense plus:

Otherwise the value proposition is not good enough.

We'll each have to do that calculation for ourselves. No one is forcing anyone to use pfSense CE or to use the plus version when it rolls out.

If I had a bank account that would allow me to write a check, make it good and free for everyone, I would. Those who do don't.

In case anyone thinks I'm a fan boy or apologist I'll share some of my activities from the last few days. Downloaded VyOS and setup a build environment. Had a good look around at what a used Cisco ISR costs, what licenses would I have to pony up for. Thought about how I would setup a standalone DHCP/DNS server that isn't Microsoft. I even had a browse around the forums over at Ubiquiti to see what is up with the 2.x version of the edge router SW. I'm not pretending that nothing has changed, I'm also not panicking.

Cool_Corona

@jwj Mikrotik, IPfire, OPNsense is alternatives that could be worth considering.

So again the value proposition of a pfsense plus pricing model would be challenged with far more paid options out there.

A free version with paid support as it is/was is a much more viable option since it narrows the options out there of OSS Fw's