I hate to go back to the perpetual beta DD-WRT or OpenWrt on consumer [redacted] routers.
Just waiting for iXsystems to pull something similar. 
If you look at it a different way, this is good for Tom… He can make a bunch of new videos on a different product, and they will get watched. Not good for the former company, though mostly those are hardware based systems that I assume (probably incorrectly) come with some sort of software updates if nothing else.
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This is true, but I have heard Tom say many times they he wont review something because he or his business doesn’t use it. Which I understand completely, but I don’t think he will branch out much at least on the firewall front. I am curious to know what his thoughts are on this topic and that will determine his videos going forward.
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Migration to OPNsense in progress…
“So long and thanks for all the fish” - 
, HHGTTG
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Guessing most people here know this, but Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy reference. I’d suggest the book, though the original TV version was entertaining.
(edit), I just did a search on Youtube for opnsense, it does not seem to have the depth of content on it, it might ab opportunity here for an established channel to do a full walk through, Ventoy boot to operational. Then follow up with some of the extras that people will want/need. My preference is real hardware, I still don’t like virtual machines for something that is supposed to keep the gates locked.
So far I have noticed the usual comments of “I am moving to something else…” but no one talking about the big picture of how open source get’s made and more importantly to this discussion, how FreeBSD keeps getting updates.
The sad reality is FreeBSD is not near what it used to be in term of development and contributors. Without the contributions of Netgate & Juniper pushed upstream, OPNSense does not continue to get as many new features & updates. This has nothing to do with peoples opinions or feelings about how Netgate operates as a company, and I am not here to defend what is obviously a failure on their part to communicate their changes to the community in a clear way (hoping they a have blog post soon).
I am a long time open source advocate but I am also aware of the challenges many open source project face, especially those based on BSD. Like it or not, the reality is we need companies like Juniper and Netgate to keep pushing forward for development related to firewall features or other downstream projects die.
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Do we know what happens to existing home use plus licenses with respect to expiration?
Not clear at this time and also why I am waiting to do the video on this topic until they post some clarification. The good news is you can move back to pfsense CE using the config from the plus version which means you are not stuck rebuilding the system.
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What a mess. I agree with your post about upstream contributions, but that goodwill can only go so far. This is such a slap in the face to the community.
It isn’t like they said “plus is free for now, but will require a paid support contract at a later time” … they flat out lied.
I cannot fathom how killing their base of advocates is good business.
The internet wants blood and in this case, I feel it is entirely justified.
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I can understand the implications of developing the source code and keeping it current. It obviously incurs a cost. Personally I don’t need the paid support as home user and pretty much all of my training comes from Tom :). However there is also a cost per benefit to look at for us homelabbers and general home users. I have a recycled hardware box that I have installed pf on and is serving me well. Recycling older hardware is something I like to do. Personally I would not be against paying a reasonable fee for the plus version for home use - as long as this cost is in line with use case. For arguments sake lets say a fee of $40 per year for home use - this would ensure contributing to the cost for maintaining the code as well as have access to the more up to date versions. In todays world I think everyone will need to assess their use case and as to whether they will continue with pf. YMMV. Looking forward to seeing what shakes out…
Isn’t the big picture they provide a GUI for all the opensource products they use? Looks like they do kickback code to BSD which is great and all, but is that kind of it? I would guess in the next decade they migrate over to Linux just so save money. Why recreate the wheel in 2023?
Isn’t migrating to Opensene super easy? Read the menus, click a few buttons and voila you’re back in bussiness. But Tom is right, this switch would probably just buy you another 5-10 years. Unfortunately, the BSD problem will only get worse as the years go by.
That is fair. I don’t want to move away from pfsense for reasons already listed and I don’t even care if they make a little money off me to do it. I’d pay for a license, but needs to be reasonable for home use and all the features need to be there.
I also want to be able to trust this company on what they say and they need to VERY upfront about what they want to do going forward and taking feedback seriously. We will wait and see what the blog post has to say.
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Had they done nothing they would have been fine. They should have never had this push to move everyone to plus. That’s where I believe the backlash is coming from. It’s been what less than 6 months, and they are already back pedaling on it.
I understand they need to make money. That’s not the issue. As a long time home Linux user, I even have paid software on my machine. However I would have a hard time giving money to a company I don’t trust. They seem to keep changing things. How many of these posts have their been recently.
It’s the reason I’ll at least be giving OPNsense a go this weekend. It seems like as good as a time as ever to try it.
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They released a statement via their blog post:
What an unbelievable bait and switch. Not even a discounted price for home users. What a joke.
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I guess now we know what happens to existing users. Just wow. Literally overnight, no warning, time to plan, nothing.
TL will definitely have some juicy content to discuss now.
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$129/year per firewall for a basic home use is not reasonable. If it was $129/year regardless of number of firewalls, well, that’s something easier to swallow because I have 3 houses I run pfSense at, two of them are houses with 2 firewalls in an active/passive pair that I could live without. But $387/year is more than I am willing to pay for this software. Heck, go to a smaller monthly subscription cost for an account that has the support and allows for multiple firewalls, within reason. Say $10/month or $15/month for up to 5 firewalls, heck I’m on board with that. I know that $129/year is like $10.75/month, but the monthly bill is much easier for home users than the larger bill yearly.
I will be keeping an eye on this.
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I think they underestimated those using the license illegally and that’s sadly the crux of the problem, so from a business aspect I understand their reason.
Like most things it depends on your point of view.
If the CE version is maintained then I’ll be ok with that.
If I want the Plus+ version then buying their hardware makes sense, as it will pay for itself after 2 or 3 years, which I think is their main goal.
Don’t think Chinese vendors will be stopped by this move of installing pfSense on their boxes, I really think this is a bit overstated, no businesses would buy such a box and not install pfsense themselves, doubt a user who buys such boxes also would not install pfsense themselves.
Likely to roll back to CE version in due course. Though I note if you are running Plus+ and you want to do a complete restore you won’t be able to go from CE to 23.05.1 any longer whatsoever.