Jim, As a long-time member of this list, a former contributor (and hopefully future contributor again once my work allows), and a major proponent of pfSense any time I hear anyone talking about purchasing new firewalls (I even wrote a paper back in college about using and contributing back to pfSense), I have to say that I was a bit taken aback by the tone of your last post.
While no one (that I know of) denies that supporting the company by buying appliances is a great way to make sure the project keeps going and a way to say thanks for the great work that you do, I seem to recall that one of the old major selling points of pfSense was that you could run it on just about any hardware. In fact, for many home and small business users (less than 30 machines with up to 75Mbps Internet connections) for whom I have set up pfSense, I have done the setup using only old components scavenged from computers that the home or business was retiring because they were too slow to run Windows. All of those machines are still running, except for one which got fried by a lightning hit. Additionally, all of those machines, including at least one old Pentium 4, are performing well enough to max out whatever Internet connection the entity is paying for. I highly recommend purchasing branded pfSense hardware for business use and faster Internet speeds (a wholehearted and unreserved recommendation despite having never done so myself), but the pfSense *software project* has a long history of use with non-branded hardware which has been discussed and supported by the community on this list many times in the past. Maybe I'm reading too much into points 1 (second paragraph) and 4 of your message, but it sounds somewhat hostile to the old use-your-own-hardware selling point that brought me into the pfSense community ten years ago in the first place. Moshe -- Moshe Katz -- [email protected] -- +1(301)867-3732 On Wed, Aug 3, 2016 at 9:36 PM, Jim Thompson <[email protected]> wrote: > Here's all you need to know: > > 1) we only test releases on the hardware we sell, or have sold in the past > two years. (Obviously doesn't include VM images.) > > We don't intentionally break anything, but your J1900 box isn't in the test > matrix, nor will it ever be. That said, we have included > fixes for hardware that we'll never ship. The i217s on recent Intel NUCs > is one example. > > 2) Many people are employed making pfSense. Appliance sales make up the > largest part of the revenue that keeps them employed working on pfSense. > > If you want to support the project and make pfSense better, you’re welcome > to submit bugs or develop fixes. If you’re not a developer but want to > support the project, you can always purchase a Gold Subscription" > > 3) At the ram densities involved, ECC isn't going to buy you much. If we > were doing storage, the story would be different, but given the relative > error rates of Ethernet and non-ECC RAM, you're unlikely to ever detect a > bit error. Those of you still running on CF or "SD Cards" should worry > about your storage, not ECC ram. > > We could have put ECC on the RCC-VE boards, and chose not to. There isn't > a good reason for raising the cost (and therefore price). > > 4) Your enthusiasm for your j1900 box is understood, but this is the > pfsense list. > > You're a guest. Be nice. > > Jim > _______________________________________________ > pfSense mailing list > https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list > Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold > _______________________________________________ pfSense mailing list https://lists.pfsense.org/mailman/listinfo/list Support the project with Gold! https://pfsense.org/gold
