Does opnsense help contribute code commits to freebsd?

[allebone]

At 10 minutes in this video the host insinuates that opnsense does not seem to provide commits (or at least very few) to freebsd? Is this true?

Background of this video is yesterday pfsense have changed their license for home users who were previously offered a more pro version for free and this is being revoked.

https://www.youtube.com/live/rXI6-E1nc5M?si=mSkMmn09d4WyQ6go

[franco]

😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

This one was pretty expensive:

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commit/ce12afaa6fff

Some ports and core commits since FreeBSD is on git:

https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-src/commits?author=fichtner
https://github.com/freebsd/freebsd-ports/commits?author=fichtner

Things that FreeBSD hasn't picked up:

https://reviews.freebsd.org/D8877
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D34329
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D41572
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D36259
https://reviews.freebsd.org/D40725

Probably more under the hood. I've contributed to mandoc in the past, which is in FreeBSD base...

src % git grep Franco.Fichtner
contrib/mandoc/LICENSE:Copyright (c) 2013 Franco Fichtner <franco@lastsummer.de>
contrib/mandoc/NEWS:   Thanks to Franco Fichtner for doing part of the work.
contrib/mandoc/NEWS:   now works.  Thanks to Franco Fichtner for the patch.
contrib/mandoc/TODO:  reported again by Franco Fichtner Fri, 27 Sep 2013 21:02:28 +0200
contrib/mandoc/man_macro.c: * Copyright (c) 2013 Franco Fichtner <franco@lastsummer.de>
contrib/mandoc/mdoc_term.c: * Copyright (c) 2013 Franco Fichtner <franco@lastsummer.de>
sbin/dhclient/bpf.c: * Copyright (c) 2021 Franco Fichtner <franco@opnsense.org>

We are pretty bad at this open source thing if nobody notices, right? ;)


Cheers,
Franco

[allebone]

Thank you for clarifying. Unclear why he says this. Disappointing as he has a big YT channel.

[franco]

He's constantly had the need to defend them and push talking points on why the other software is better. Like FreeBSD 14 is a big point for half a year now... but c'mon we've done all the work for FreeBSD 13 and they did nothing there, not even backporting their FreeBSD work to it (stable/13) and now production users have a FreeBSD 14 prerelease running and that's the achievement? I'm not convinced anything before FreeBSD 14.1 should be used for our users.

https://twitter.com/opnsense/status/1640425216311455744


Cheers,
Franco

[allebone]

Interesting. Thanks. A lot of us are totally reliant on news like this since we dont follow all the drama as closely.

[Monviech (Cedrik)]

This looks like it will be fun:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/17fvtvv/pfsense_plus_homelab_is_no_longer_available_as_a/

Probably lots of new users incoming. Hopefully some who pay the business edition, it's really cost effective compared to the netgate choises. :)

Monitoring what guests look at, a lot of them seem to look for topics regarding "Import PFsense config" xD

[Patrick M. Hausen]

Probably lots of new users incoming. Hopefully some who pay the business edition, it's really cost effective compared to the netgate choises. :)

I actually run the community edition everywhere, because I prefer the shorter development cycles. But I do buy and recommend Deciso's appliances. They are great.

[Seimus]

aaaand here we go, Netgate doing exactly what most of the community already thought will happen.

2 years or so when I was angry at proprietary solution and was deciding if to go either OPN or PF 2 major things decided for me to go for OPN:

1. Suspicion that NetGate will do a rugpull or other rather anti community decisions
2. Community and OPNsense interactions of the forum (you guys are just awesome)

Also in regards of Lawrence YT channel. As I watch his channel for years.
You can learn a lot from him about networking and security, however when it comes to the question of PFsense or Netgate, no matter what he will always give them pass/protect them.

When it comes to comparisons from him between PF an OPN, even thou he tries to be unbiased. He will always more lean and tell you in between the lines that PF is better because ______. A beautiful example of this is his video posted by the @allebone and one of its older where he did directly compare PF vs OPN. Example:

In the old video he complained that OPN is not so fast updated, that PF is faster updated thus is better. Yet in his latest video he is saying exactly the opposite That OPNsense has more updates than PF yet it may cause problems (like bugs, issues etc.). This made me laugh actually listening to his reaction and remembering some of his old videos.

Regards,
S.

[Seimus]

Will be interesting what will happen to NetGate in the future as they go the full Corporate way.


P.S. Reading that Reddit post is hilarious some comments are funny AF lol.

Regards,
S.

[lawrencesystems]

The videos I make are based mostly on my use of the things I talk about not just in a lab or test setup, but more often in production environments that we manage for clients directly or consult on. Creating content based on the things we use in production environments is much easier than making content on something that I just test in the lab because I can discuss with my team on how projects went and incorporate that feedback and knowledge back into the videos.

This leads to lots of debate from people of "Why did you choose to use....." and for reasons I don't really understand people will treat my choice of a solution as an attack on the solution they prefer. This occurs with many things I talk about, and relevant to this post is of course firewall choices.

As a long time user of pfsense for business production system that is the platform both me and my team know very well. It has been part of thousands of network builds we have consulted on making it an easy topic for me to cover. As for OPNSense when asked I have had the same response for years: "Use what makes you happy." As for things in my videos I have said about OPNSense vs pfsense regarding updates, I frequently mention that the package updates are more frequent from OPNSense and therefore less ideal when you have to manage many clients firewalls due to the more frequent updates to the system. If I am wrong about this, let me know.

I find it weird that my tweet was perceived as "He's constantly had the need to defend them and push talking points on why the other software is better" as that is out of context of what I was discussing. I said in that tweet thread that I don't think OPNSense is bad and my mention that pfsense is on FreeBSD 14 and both projects are actively developed. This is just a reply to someone asking if OPNSense is it more modern. I don't see this as telling people not to use OPNSense and goes back to my statement that my choice on what I use is should not be perceived as an attack on the things I don't use.

In the video referenced that started this post I clearly do not agree with the changes they made and I discuss the challenges of open source in general with a focus on the FreeBSD and if we don't have strong contributors then the downstream ecosystems will suffer from that. 

We all benefit from good discussion on these topics and sharing knowledge so If there are things I am wrong about, let me know.

[franco]

My point simply is the lack of "what about FreeBSD 13" for the last two years, but hey now suddenly 14 is where the heat is at and OPNsense is obviously not fast enough in adopting prereleases. Back then there wasn't even a stable/14 branch, let alone a releng/14.0 to back up the progress. You could have just as easily said it's using the latest development version of FreeBSD, but that sounds not as good as 13 old, 14 good, right? These details matter in marketing. :)


Cheers,
Franco

[lawrencesystems]

Details do matter and I implicitly said the version for clarity. Say that is was a "dev" version would require the date as context. Also, I am not much of a marketing person, I am more of a tech person.  8)

[franco]

Fair enough. Thanks for responding to that bit.  :)


Cheers,
Franco

[allebone]

In the video referenced that started this post I clearly do not agree with the changes they made and I discuss the challenges of open source in general with a focus on the FreeBSD and if we don't have strong contributors then the downstream ecosystems will suffer from that. 

We all benefit from good discussion on these topics and sharing knowledge so If there are things I am wrong about, let me know.

Thank Lawrence for your input. The OP was not intended to be mean spirited towards you and I agree discussion is good. People will always be passionate so just stay safe and dont take it too personally is all I can say. I was disappointed in what you said which is why I sought clarification here but Im not attacking your character or suggesting that you act in bad faith in any way or anything like that. I like your videos and I encourage people not to get too worked up and stay civil. Your input is appreciated even if it is a perspective not what we expected. In some ways thats even more valuable as we can learn from it :)

Laters
-P

[Seimus]

Same here, my comment was not to attack you, it was just my perceptions on some of the aspect of your comparisons between the systems.

It's obvious that you feel more comfortable on a platform you work and do projects, but some things could be explained better. As I told,  you do good stuff, you have good presentation skills and people can learn a thing or two from you in regards of Network & Security.

Regads,
S.