Miising alias description

[fmaxwell]

The time is better spent elsewhere.

Thank you for sharing your opinion and for your prompt reply.

[RGijsen]

Over the years we have had to make a choice: listen to the users that we have or listen to potential users who only miss this one feature X. We choose to listen to the former group as that is the one we can depend on. And we also like to build solutions for them, not only take things away.

I was an OPNsense user and I never saw a poll asking if I would be okay with losing countless alias item descriptions I had entered.  Had I seen such a poll here, I would have registered at the time to voice my objections.

I had blacklist aliases I developed to protect our servers, with descriptions that included type(s) of abuse, whether the entry was to be permanent or temporary, and what ISP/organization owned the IP block.  Without those descriptions, it became all-but-impossible to maintain those aliases.  That's why I went through the extremely time-consuming process of migrating back to pfSense.

Imagine if you updated to a later revision of your IDE (integrated development environment) and all of the comments were stripped out of your source code.  That's what it was like.  My well-documented aliases turned into the firewall equivalent of source code with all of the comments and line breaks stripped out.

This is one the reasons we did NOT make the move to OpnSense. There might be a reason for removing the descriptions, but it's a feature sorely missed. The fact that other vendors might not have it (most I've seen DO have it) should not be the reason to remove it. But more so, the attitude from the developers towards users or prospects made us scratch our heads.

The time is better spent elsewhere.

So are our bucks.

But hey, it's a free world, choose whatever suits you.

[franco]

Please stop barking and put in some effort instead:

https://github.com/opnsense/core/pulse/monthly

Constant stream of work going into OPNsense says you're simply pissed you don't get what you want for no effort given. Spoiler alert: effort is needed to get what you want.


Cheers,
Franco

[RGijsen]

Franco,
now that's exactly part of our problem. Your answer to everything (and yes I exaggerate) seems to be 'if you don't like it, contribute'. But you know as well as me that's not feasible. Your users / customers are not supposed to be coders, right? I'm not a coder, nor do I have any coders in the company I own. But if we consider buying or supporting a product, does that mean if we don't like something that WAS in there, we can't try to start a constructive discussion on it? Usually I feel that's one of the advantages of picking an open source product, as there's a community that is usually open minded. Opposed to for example MS who just makes choices for users no matter if they like them or not (Windows 10 update terror anyone? But even THEY gave in and reverse it, go figure).
It seems my company is not alone in missing this particular feature, but it's not about this one feature. It's about the general attitude. I really wanted to like OpnSense, and I do, but if this is how customers are treated and how discussions are ended, then that's certainly not the company I want to work with. I wish you the very best of luck with it. No hard feelings, but I'm pretty sure this way it'll cost you paying customers. It cost you at least one already.

[AdSchellevis]

I think someone is confusing the terms company and project. From time to time there are companies needing changes to the (core) system and contribute (financially) making things happen in case they can't drive the change themselves (or just need more guidance).

It's just very easy to ask others to pay for your dish. In some cases you get lucky since people actually willing to sponsor these changes are working on it, or others for whatever reason are willing to pay for it. Today just doesn't seem to be your lucky day in that regard.

We (as a company) have no record of you being a customer, you're more than welcome to become one.

Just for the record, Franco spends a lot of his own time on the project and doesn't get paid for his work.

Best regards,

Ad

[franco]

I think most of it is missing the point completely: we very rarely decide to go against particular wishes, but when we do we have to stay true to what we set out to do and why. These reasons have been stated and the situation since was handled according to this principle. There's no reason to indicate we treat anyone unfairly or stop discussions which have a base.

I'm not going to give examples of where people actually get what they want for free. The general rule is politeness and accordance on what can be achieved with what we have. That is for every individual to decide for themselves. The patch notes may be a general indication of this...

Unfortunately, as said a number of times, this particular case is non-negotiable. Even time spent explaining what non-negotiable means is better spent on software improvements or mirror maintenance or helping users in this forum. If you want to be angry on this view of "time better spent" then so be it. I know some people don't and I do care a great deal for them.

If it WAS there, it actually still is if you keep using the old code, which you are allowed to do. There is, however, no privilege associated with old code to be new and secure and up-to-date code. It would be absurd to make this claim openly. I can only guess this is your implicit point and making it explicit helps understand how much you are asking us to do:

1. Reverse a decision against the best of our intentions for code that is neither broken nor unable to perform technical requirements.

2. Keep old and likely flawed code from being replaced by more modern and slim code implementations.

3. Being open for the sake of having to deal with wishes from people who think that open means they can demand whatever of the community, project or open source in general.

I hope this makes it a little bit clearer why we are not going back on this particular issue. Attacking people for their behaviour that you happen to not agree with is not a good case for future discussion. It would rather indicate you see what you want to see and merely try to use common sense now to get what you want without binding yourself to the same understanding of civility.


Cheers,
Franco

[fmaxwell]

Attacking people for their behaviour that you happen to not agree with is not a good case for future discussion. It would rather indicate you see what you want to see and merely try to use common sense now to get what you want without binding yourself to the same understanding of civility.

Franco, you seem to be the one attacking people and showing a lack of civility, accusing RGijsen of "barking" and being "pissed you[RGijsen] don't get what you want for no effort given."  You even went so far as to condescendingly suggesting that he needs you to explain the term "non-negotiable."  By contrast, RGijsen has been courteous and professional, writing:

I wish you the very best of luck with it. No hard feelings, but I'm pretty sure this way it'll cost you paying customers. It cost you at least one already.

As to 'putting in some effort,' to what end?  All of us who want alias element descriptions should spend weeks reimplementing them so that you can reject our work?

From time to time there are companies needing changes to the (core) system and contribute (financially) making things happen in case they can't drive the change themselves (or just need more guidance).

This appears to be the first time Deciso has suggested that someone could "sponsor" the reintroduction of the feature.  How much money would Deciso require in order to reintroduce alias element descriptions into the GUI, making it a standard, supported feature going forward? 

[franco]

Franco, you seem to be the one attacking people and showing a lack of civility, accusing RGijsen of "barking" and being "pissed you[RGijsen] don't get what you want for no effort given."  You even went so far as to condescendingly suggesting that he needs you to explain the term "non-negotiable."  By contrast, RGijsen has been courteous and professional, writing:

You are absolutely right, albeit dismissing the fact that this is a reaction to an unreasonable stance after having taken the time to explain this multiple times. If people don't like other people's decisions and their reasoning there's no reason to start acting a certain less productive way. That's what happened here.

If you want me to not respond to frustrations you'd have to claim we don't respond to negativity and how much that is disliked. There's no easy way out of this and you keep telling what you don't like and that list never ends if you put your time into it.

I wish you the very best of luck with it. No hard feelings, but I'm pretty sure this way it'll cost you paying customers. It cost you at least one already.

As to 'putting in some effort,' to what end?  All of us who want alias element descriptions should spend weeks reimplementing them so that you can reject our work?

There's no use for a straw man argument -- let's talk about mergeable work when that work is here. Also, note that this would imply it's reasonable to ask us to spend "weeks reimplementing" which I said I don't agree with and you can't change my mind that something that somebody wants must be done by the people who generally contribute to an open source project because that is what you envision it to be.

Above all, be prepared for a "no, thanks" and don't try to make a fool of yourself on the way out.

From time to time there are companies needing changes to the (core) system and contribute (financially) making things happen in case they can't drive the change themselves (or just need more guidance).

It's just very easy to ask others to pay for your dish. In some cases you get lucky since people actually willing to sponsor these changes are working on it, or others for whatever reason are willing to pay for it. Today just doesn't seem to be your lucky day in that regard.

This appears to be the first time Deciso has suggested that someone could "sponsor" the reintroduction of the feature.  How much money would Deciso require in order to reintroduce alias element descriptions into the GUI, making it a standard, supported feature going forward?

Note this is a community forum. Try https://www.deciso.com/request-support/


Cheers,
Franco

[fmaxwell]

You are absolutely right, albeit dismissing the fact that this is a reaction to an unreasonable stance after having taken the time to explain this multiple times. If people don't like other people's decisions and their reasoning there's no reason to start acting a certain less productive way. That's what happened here.

You explained your reasoning and we explained ours.  We failed to convince you of the value of the feature and you failed to convince us that the non-negotiable, never-to-be-revisited decision to remove it was the right one.  I don't think that entitles either of us to lash out at the other.

There's no use for a straw man argument...

It's not a straw man.  You suggested contributing to development if we wanted that feature, yet you have categorically ruled out ever putting it back in.  You didn't make it contingent on the code being clean, well-documented, efficient, maintainable, etc.  You just said it was a "final," "non-negotiable" change.

BTW, I released my first open source software in 1985.

Note this is a community forum. Try https://www.deciso.com/request-support/

This community forum is where AdSchellevis of Deciso suggested that someone could "sponsor" the reintroduction of the feature.  So I'm asking him in the same forum because I'd like the answer to be visible to others reading this exchange.  Perhaps we could pool our money to pay for it.

[franco]

I admire your principles. I'll mimic whatever level of conversation you want to have. We can indeed get back to a useful discussion.

I merely laid out the reasons from the core team perspective that we will not be working on this. If I'm being pressed on the matter, I'll reiterate again on that stance, likely without the full extent of my intention.

As things are still open source that leaves the door wide open for possibilities.


Cheers,
Franco

[franco]

PS: I reread the thread and it got bad before anyone would ask what it would take to bring it back. The answer is user contribution on top of the newly embedded code. Plain and simple answer to a question missing in action.

[AdSchellevis]

With the risk of repeating myself:

... In some cases you get lucky since people actually willing to sponsor these changes are working on it, or others for whatever reason are willing to pay for it.......

It's not about this particular feature, it's a general statement, we're not planning to work on this ourselves, for the simple reason that there are valid workarounds which also are very comparable to features other vendors offer.

[fmaxwell]

I admire your principles. I'll mimic whatever level of conversation you want to have. We can indeed get back to a useful discussion.

Thank you, Franco. 

Unfortunately, my use case (aliases as abuse blacklists) requires the feature -- it's as basic to me as the ability to comment source code.  I wish I could make do without it, because the OPNsense GUI for GeoIP aliases is elegant, well thought out, and powerful and would make my life much easier.  But I can't maintain other aliases that are dozens, or even hundreds, of lines long without an ability to identify the ISP, country, abuse type, permanence, etc. on each entry.

Apparently, the loss of the feature is not a deal killer for others.  Best of luck to you going forward and thank you for the time you've taken on this aspect of opnSense.

Regards,
  fmaxwell

[franco]

Hi fmaxwell,

Your reasoning is sound. Everybody shall act according to their requirements.


Thanks,
Franco