Is PFsense Open Source?

This is pretty much FUD. Its source is on GitHub (GitHub - pfsense/pfsense: Main repository for pfSense) under the Apache 2.0 license, which is just as open source as the BSD 2-clause license that OPNSense uses. They were jerks when OPNSense forked, to be sure, but that hardly makes them “not very open source.” And not everyone thinks that “release early, release often” is a good strategy for a firewall.

@danb35

If you as open source fork something or another project, thats fully ok with me, it’s open source without BLOBS. (UnRAID is NOT open source, as a BLOB on a usb stick without source isn’t right!)
However, if you don’t accept someone else forking your forked project, that’s not at all open sense mentality in my opinion.

It’s also VERY hard to find any reference on their site about WHERE it all started! They like to pretend they invented it! (I looked, and can’t find a word about M0n0wall on their site so far…)

Open Source does allow for different opinions.
I know you use PFsense, you know I use OPNsense, and both is acceptible to me.

I also listen to the opinion of the creator of this whole system, including the rather special PHP/XML configuration for the whole system, Manual Kaspar (https://m0n0.ch/wall/index.php).

He’s involved in other projects, AFAIK was never directly involved in OPNsense or PFsense.
He is also the creator of a swiss secure chat system.

The newest offspring, OPNsense (https://opnsense.org), aims to continue the open source spirit of m0n0wall while updating the technology to be ready for the future. In my view, it is the perfect way to bring the m0n0wall idea into 2015, and I encourage all current m0n0wall users to check out OPNsense and contribute if they can.
Manuel Kasper

If you compare both websites (PFsense and OPNsense), the first tries to sell you a box, although you CAN download images. OPNsense also sells boxes, but it’s not that easy to find on their page.

Live and let live!

My 2 cents
Andy

A clear statement:
(from https://opnsense.org/about/about-opnsense/ )

I don’t recall seeing on Nethesis’ site that Nethserver is a fork of Mitel/contribs.org/Koozail either–does that make them “not very open source”? OTOH, if you go to pfSense’s GitHub repo (I gave the link above), you’ll see:

I’m not sure I see it as all that important to make a point of a project you forked from over 15 years ago (particularly when that project has since gone away), though it’s not a question I’ve yet given serious thought to. I’d suggest, to the contrary, that OPNsense is obscuring their history by including m0n0wall (given that pfSense had forked from that 10 years earlier), when their initial release was simply “pfSense minus the ESF branding.”

I agree that ESF (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days; I rather like “Electric Sheep Fencing”) handled the OPNSense fork very poorly (see https://web.archive.org/web/20160314132836/http://www.opnsense.com/#section-53 for a really good, or really bad (depending on your perspective) example–but be aware that it’s probably NSFW). Maybe they’ve learned better since then, maybe not.

Maybe I’m just too concerned about terminology (I’ve been discussing C.S. Lewis’ Studies In Words recently, particularly with respect to his concern about “verbicide”, the tendency for words to lose concrete, objective meaning in favor of a more subjective, value-laden meaning), but “open source software” has an objective definition, and pfSense meets that definition.

@danb35

Hi Dan

Forgetting “History” or obscuring it is in some cases a very much criminal offense - ask any Jew about that! Denial of the Holocaust is a criminal offense in Germany, and in Switzerland.

I’m not versed well enough in law to claim anything for France, Italy, GB or US.

Be it 10, 20, 50 or even 100 years ago!

I’m not a Jew, nor are any in my family, but I have great respect for them and their capabilities!

And this here?

Open Source is - IMHO - not just a legal statement, but also a “Mindset”.
There are various degrees of how, when and where.

As to Electric Sheep Fencing…
I think the first usage of Sheep was in SheepShaver - a play on ShapeShifter - an emulator for running foreign CPUs like PPC on an Intel / AMD CPU.
https://sheepshaver.cebix.net/

Are you seriously suggesting that “failing to prominently credit the defunct project you forked from 15+ years ago” is in any way comparable to this? This suggestion isn’t worthy of you–you know perfectly well that this is a special case, and you know equally well why those laws are there (even if they raise significant issues of freedom of speech–and no, there is no such law in the US, and if they were, it would almost certainly be correctly struck down as unconstitutional).

And, again, apply your own standards: I’ve looked all over nethserver.org, and I don’t see anything that says they forked from e-smith/SME. And that was much more recently than 2004, and that project is still alive (kind of). Are you going to similarly condemn Nethserver as “not very open source” for this?

Now, the GitHub link you give is a different story. Those claims, if true, would very much support your statement.

Just moved on a different topic in order to avoid hijacking it

Quite hidden but we wrote something about it here
https://www.nethserver.org/nethserver_smeserver/

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@danb35

Hi

Sorry, was at a meeting with clients.

I had read that PF-Sense link a while back, and had it in the back of my mind, but couldn’t remember where I got it from. I recently found the link again.

As to Jews, the US is not Germany, there it does make sense, even today!
I don’t think history should be changed, or denied.

But I also don’t think 50-60 years old comics, like the belgian TinTin comics should be rewritten or changed, just because they show racial versions of colored / black peoples.

Or the Lucky Luke comics, now in non smoking versions. In one he’s depicted as “rolling” a daisy…
(They replaced all cigarettes with daisys…).

If you want, you can always try a compile of PFsense.

My available hardware is only now getting back to standard levels, 2 proxmox with each 128 GB RAM, a FreeNAS with 4.5 TB…
But still not yet 10 GBE… :frowning:

I have NO issues about NethServer, i actually read the doc Alessio linked a long time ago.
But also couldn’t recall the exact document. I think it’s also mentionned in the Migration from SME to NethServer doc.
And if the SME-Server project were human, you’ld almost talk about a “vegetable”. Alive, well…

My 2 cents
Andy

Settle down guys :slight_smile: I think that such wars about what it’s OSS or not are a waste of time

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Good. I was about to block someone. I hate useless rants that anyway everybody will forget 2 hours later.

In seriousness, while I’m not sure they’re quite vegetative, I do think the situation there is pretty dire, which is why I migrated to Neth. In retrospect, makes you wonder what would have happened if the SME folks had gone along with Filippo back in 2012-2013 (and though I don’t see this in my archives right away, I recall that there was some discussion of that before Nethserver was released in early 2013).

@danb35

Hi Dan

The SME Server development team is pleased to announce the release of SME Server 9.2 which is based on CentOS 6.9, Release Notes detailed below.

Centos 6.9? Aren’t the Repos closed at Centos for 6x?

SME-Server 10 is still in Alpha (Alpha 5) since 2017, 4 years ago…

And SME10 is based on Centos 7…

Centos 8 is here already, and they still use Centos 6 as “stable”?

Sure it was stable, 9.2 was the last version I used…

But because no updates coming forth, foot dragging, and bickering in the dev community…
We both know why we came here to NethServer! And so do several of the people here I respect greatly…

Time to bury the hatchet, I don’t really want to argue, and much less with the only lawyer I respect for his IT knowhow and contributions!

Not everything with OpenSource label is truely Open Source…
Giving a gift of 9999 pieces of a 10000 piece JigSaw puzzle is similiar… :slight_smile:

Andy

…and if that’s what ESF/Rubicon are doing (which is the claim made by the page you shared), I’ll agree with you that pf isn’t very open-source.

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@danb35

See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:PfSense
Even in the german wiki, there’s similiar, albeit not quite as hefty critic in the “talk” section.

I don’t think it’s one persons rant…

Some detective films would have a guy saying: I begin to smell a rat… :slight_smile:

My 2 cents
Andy

Hi all,

I like the comparaison. I don’t have to read the articles to see the point.

It is not because you were the best at one time that you will survive:
- Memory Map-I/O vs I/O Map-IO
- Direct Address vs Multiplexed Address
- Motorola-68000 vs Intel-8086
- Netware Directory vs AD
- Mandrake/Mandriva
- Empires
- etc …

About SME:
When I got my CNA, Novell had more than 80% (maybe 87% at one point) of the market.
When I got my MasterCNE (15 months later) they were at 12%.
They said it was because of Eric Schmidt, but look what he did at Google…
Way, but very far away of saying that SME has an Eric Schmitd at the helm.
I don’t want to be too crude but, SME will follow the tracks of Novell: Die in darkness !

Adapt to survive !

My 1/2 cent,

Michel-André

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