Re: [Security Firewall] Florins Firewall

This is starting to sound frighteningly like a Slashdot thread, but I'll 
add my $0.02 as well...

Vincent Danen wrote: 

> Trying to take back?  No.  It just seems odd to me that everyone is  
> discussing forking MNF on the MNF mailing list.  As I said, I don't  
> really care what you do... it's all open source, and you're freely  
> available to do what you like with it.  But I think it's rude to  
> discuss that proposition on the list of the product you're planning  
> to fork.

It's actually quite common that forks are started on the mailing list of 
the original project. That's oftentimes where it's decided if a fork is 
necessary, and if enough people are behind the idea. If you think it's 
rude, that's fine...I wouldn't take it too personally myself. But I 
agree, a seperate mailing list is definitely needed if indeed there is 
enough of a following.

> The decision has been made, a consensus informally reached, and  
> someone asked what the next step should be.  I respectfully asked  
> that the next step should be a separate mailing list to discuss what  
> to do with it... nothing more.

Let's be fair, your initial comment was: "I have no problem with  you 
wanting to take Mandriva's hard work and invested man hours,  wages, and 
research to run off and start your own copy-cat distro and  rob Mandriva 
of their well-earned work... that is the spirit of open  source and 
GPL'd software these days, so its entirely your right."

Implying that the subscribers of this mailing list (and your customers), 
as well as the entire Open Source movement are thieves by claiming we 
want to "rob them" is far from respectful.

>   This isn't tyranny, this isn't about taking a list back, this isn't  
> about taking a product back, this is all about one thing: respect.

Since you brought it up...How about respect for the customers? As a 
previous member mentioned, he ran into great difficulty trying to get 
the support that he paid for shortly before the Mandriva rebranding. I 
ran into the exact same thing. After convincing a client to purchase the 
support, the three occasions where we actually needed the support that 
was paid for were largely ignored, all responses were automated and the 
only real contact I ever had were confirmations of subsciption status. 
In the end the solutions were found in IRC channels, of all places, and 
those guys were far more patient, helpful and professional.

> Why?  I don't understand what I said that made everyone so upset.

It isn't what you said, it's how you said it that I believe has some 
members a little taken aback. Again, implying that we're thieves is a 
little extreme, but in addition the overly defensive attitude and 
unwarranted melodrama is a little unexpected from a company trying to 
acheive a more corporate and professional image.

> We make the CVS available for MNF... you'll notice  it's not hidden, 
> it's not locked away, it's not out of the public's  hands.  Which is 
> another reason I'm insulted you compare us to  Microsoft.  But despite 
> all of this, and all we do, it seems like  it's not enough.  You get 
> upset because we don't give you the final  product with a bowtie and 
> silver plate?  Come on... if you want the  fancy wrapping, you need to 
> pay for it.  But there's nothing stopping  you from getting your hands 
> dirty and compiling a few things out of  CVS is there?  Absolutely not.

It seems like it's not enough because quite frankly, it isn't...If you 
want your product to compare to other enterprise firewalls, dumping the 
CVS tree at your potential customers and saying "build it yourself" is 
very unlikely to generate sales. Most commercial software firewalls 
offer trial periods for customers to "try before you buy", and even many 
appliance based firewalls have demo programs where you can get a free 
unit for a limited time. The dual license that SNF and MNF were 
originally released under was (I believe) based on this concept, but 
MNF2 seems to have taken a different route, which may have inspired the 
Microsoft comparison.  I personally don't believe the Microsoft 
comparison is warranted, because they offer free trials for their 
software, and also have impeccable support services.

> I hate to say it, and I don't mean to sound rude,

Too late.

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