Re: PodHeitor Incremental Accelerator, Ransomware Detection and Remediation Plugin for Bacula

Hi Heitor, all,

I'm replying on-list to an email sent to me directly. I hope I'll not 
sanitize qoutes too much, removing inappropriate amounts of context. 
Heitor agreed to me replying here, by the way.

Am 28.04.2026 um 17:11 schrieb Heitor Faria:
...
>      > I'm still deciding about the licensing. Any insights? For now, it is
>      > just full copyright.
> 
>     This, frankly, sounds dubious... Full copyright is not telling me
>     anything. Doe you mean "all rights reserved"?
> 
> 
> The plugins are proprietary, all rights reserved, commercial license. I 
> am still deciding whether to release a community edition with a subset 
> of features. No decision yet.

Ok. The parallel discussion about licensing should already prove 
helpful. I must admit I'm surprised you were not aware of the can of 
worms you were opening, though -- you're working with FLOSS software 
long enough, and with a "Law degree with specialization in software 
licensing" this should never have happened.

> 
>      > I have all the documentation, which I'm publishing progressively.
>      > Please verify the AKA Sentinel Plugin Whitepaper: https://
>      > baculaenterprise.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/PodHeitor-
>     <http://baculaenterprise.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/PodHeitor->
>      > Incremental-Accelerator-Ransomware-Detection-and-Remediation-
>     Plugin.pdf
>      > <https://baculaenterprise.com.br/wp-content/uploads/2026/04/
>     PodHeitor- <https://baculaenterprise.com.br/wp-content/
>     uploads/2026/04/PodHeitor->
>      > Incremental-Accelerator-Ransomware-Detection-and-Remediation-
>     Plugin.pdf>
> 
>     In this particular case, I see a very specific solution, seems to be a
>     combination of incremental accelerator where you try to use the change
>     tracking to also react to bulk changes. Good idea, in a way, although I
>     doubt it will work reliably. However, that's not based on actual
>     knowledge as I have not tried your plugin/add-on.
> 
> 
> Commvault uses a similar technique. So that's how I know it is 
> beneficial and feasible. =)

Well, Commvault has years of engineering and a rather large team of 
developers working on those things, which I like to understand as 
justifying my doubts :-)

But as I said -- I'd really like to give your product a try. There are 
quite some aspects that the public documenttaion does not cover -- for 
example, what will happen if the Sentinel Plugin gets incomplete file 
change history, or gets swamped with change notifications? How will it 
work with uncommon file systems, and what happens if backups are too 
rare so the list of changed files overflows?

>      >     Right now, I read big claims and no details at all, your github
>      >     pages do
>      >     not show anything about those,
>      >
>      > Because they are still private repositories.
> 
>     Do you intend to make those visible?
> 
> 
> Possibly, at least partially. I am considering opening the plugin API 
> layer and keeping the backend logic proprietary — similar to what some 
> commercial Bacula add-ons do. Nothing committed yet.

It might be a good idea to discuss with other contributors how such an 
API should be structured and implemented; I don't think it's beneficial 
if we have a number of incompatible but open plugin APIs existing next 
to each other, when a common effort might lead to a better product and 
give you all more time to work on differentiating solutions. Perhaps 
even on solutions that complement each other, and don't directly compete.

> 
>      >     your web site is full of statements I
>      >     find, politely expressed, doubtful, and your offers seem to
>      >     aggressively
>      >     target Bacula Systems and other large backup software.
>      >
>      > I wouldn't say aggressive, but competitive.
> 
>     Fair enough in some respect, although I must admit I don't see how your
>     Bacula Enterprise Appliance can be competitive. I also think your
>     references are to a large extent not yours, but from Bacula Systems.
>     The
>     same for all the plugins you mention.
> 
> 
>   We are progressively adjusting our website.

Progressively removing incorrect claims may prove to be a bit too 
relaxed. But of course it's your web site. On the other hand, it's also 
your credibility and, perhaps, your lawyer's bill.

>      >     Can you show us anything that would kind of prove you can
>     actually
>      >     deliver on those promises? -- After all, you're using this
>     mailing list
>      >     for your marketing, which I consider reasonable (ok, borderline
>      >     reasonable :-) as it's surely interesting for Bacula users,
>     but you're
>      >     not giving us anything to discuss. I want this to remain a
>      >     discussion list.
>      >
>      > I'm sorry about the tone and shallowness. Before you sent this, I
>     had
>      > already instructed my AI to provide more technical details on those
>      > launch statements.
> 
>     And now I'm really disappointed... does this imply I'm conversing with
>     an AI, not a person now?
> 
> 
> No - you are conversing with me, Heitor.

I'll trust you on this. I must admit i'm a bit dissatisfied with recent 
developments (not only here, not only with you, and not only on public 
email lists) but I will probably start filtering known AI users pretty 
aggressively in the near future, and I might even investigate how I can 
automatically send rude replies to people who think it's fair to send 
their thoughtlessly generated "contents" my way so I can then spend time 
and effort on fixing their slop. Anyway, that is a digression here. 
Sorry for that.

Anyway -- I'd still be interested in seeing what you have, not only 
because I'm curious, but also because I think that, if your claims are 
even remotely realistic, there may be some value to Bacula users, and 
I'm very much interested in that.

Cheers,

Arno


-- 
Arno Lehmann

IT-Service Lehmann
Sandstr. 6, 49080 Osnabrück



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