On 13 February 2014 17:54, Andrew Hull <[email protected]> wrote: > My knee jerk reaction is that this is A Bad Thing(tm), and I reloaded the
I don't think this is a bad thing at all, I only consider it to be a sign that pfSense is starting to really get a good foothold in the market, and something not only something that tech savvy people venture into and use. I've been an avid pfSense user for years, and once I started using pfSense I've never looked back, and used it both personally as well as commercially. The thing about security related software, no matter who develops/markets/sells/distributes it, once you start using it for whatever purpose, it's all about a trust relationship that you establish. Some people don't really bother much about security, and rest on the pillow that "I've heard this piece of software is really good and secure" and leave it at that. Some others spend their time researching different alternatives, try to gather feedback from reviews and security related web sites and make up their mind based on that. Some take it even one step further, and establish fully working test labs where they try to the best of their abilities to test every possible usage scenarios they can come up with, and try to find weaknesses and/or flaws. Some even take it one stop further, and try to get their hands on the source code and scrutinize that. I made my mind up with a combination of all of the above, but what really pulled the scales in the direction of pfSense was in the end two factors: 1) ease of use through a really nice user interface (both web and CLI) [which was made even better with the release of 2.0 with a linked relationship between port forwards/rules] 2) the fact that whole source tree was readily available for anyone to audit and monitor The latter exposes not only the core of the product, but also the workflow and priorities of those involved in the making of pfSense. It's a level of transparency that you see more and more of, and for me personally, is nothing more but a huge neon sign saying "we have nothing to hide! please trust us!", and this is what I've done. The thing that brand names as Netgear now sells out of the box products with re-imaged pfSense distributions is for me a no brainer. Not only does it increase the user base of pfSense, meaning that bugs, performance issues etc are more easily uncovered and fixed in a timely manner, but it also means that EFS generates more revenue, which goes back into funding the continued development of the free product that all of us use. As long as the current business model remains, where external funding is used to enhance pfSense as it stands today, and it remains free for everyone, I see no problems at all. EFS also has commercial support avaiable, that both helps EFS run as a company and also helps the community as a whole, which is great! We all have different needs, and some might *never* require such support. I welcome Netgear to the pfSense community as a most welcome addition, and I hope to see similar additions in the time to come. -- Yours sincerely Jostein Elvaker Haande "A free society is a place where it is safe to be unpopular" - Adlai Stevenson http://tolecnal.net -- tolecnal at tolecnal dot net _______________________________________________ List mailing list [email protected] http://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list
