Debunking the Myths
There are some myths surrounding our project offered mostly by pfSense enthusiasts, if you have read their comments on us then we’d recommend to just ignore them and install OPNsense, if you have not already done so.
I am not sure if you know what debunk means, but you clearly haven't done it here. You literally just say to ignore the claims of your main competitor, and install your software with no explanation of the overall situation. This basically lets the PfSense people say whatever they want about you, and everyone only ever hears their half of the story.
I only recently became aware of the PfSense/OPNSense... "flame war" for lack of a better word, but this failure to address the claims of the PfSense people worries me. Make no mistake, I have no trust whatsoever for PfSense after they stopped releasing their source code, the opnsense.com fiasco, and their deliberately misleading advertising, but I have seen no evidence presented thus far about how OPNSense is supposed to be any better.
Obviously, they make a lot of ridiculous claims and it is difficult to debunk all of them, but there are a few recurring ones that seem to keep coming up:
- They claim that OPNSense attempted to steal the PfSense trademark and become "PfSense in Europe".
- They claim that you are a bunch of amateurs who routinely push alpha quality software, and deliberately remove features, so that you can add them back in over a period of several months so you look like you are doing something.
- They claim that your code quality is bad, and that you have broken VPN functionality, and VLANs on 5 separate occasions.
- They claim that the original OPNSense fork was mainly so that you could sell branded hardware, not because you are actually trying to improve it.
- They claim that they have tried to contribute to OPNSense and been told to "fuck off" by the lead people.
A simple google search for "pfsense vs opnsense" should turn up the respective threads on reddit, various forums, and ycombinator, but for convenience I will list a couple of them here:
Note: A lot of the time, the posters are either gonzopacho or htilonom. I think it is reasonable to assume that they are representative of the PfSense crowd, however there are other people who bring up points on these forums that aren't explicitly associated with PfSense, but who nonetheless make claims about your behavior that I think may need to be addressed.
Broken VLANs, branded hardware and Europe trademark issue:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/3rh9dw/pfsense_vs_opnsense/
They also claim that you tried to delete their Wikipedia page, although from what I understand they also tried to do this to you.
Feature reintroduction issue, broken VLANs:
https://www.reddit.com/r/PFSENSE/comments/35dl17/pfsense_vs_opnsense_articles/
"We've fixed bugs in opnsense for people, and were told to fuck off by both Franco and Jos. We've pointed out errors in how they do things and have been told to fuck off by Franco and Jos." Not sure about this one either, no corroborating evidence.
The point is, you not saying anything about any of this is a bad idea. It makes it seem like you are deliberately avoiding addressing these issues, which might lead some people to conclude that you have something to hide. For context, this is similar to gonzo's response (or lack thereof) to the claims that it has been impossible to reproduce PfSense builds since 2.3.5. Whenever people bring it up, he simply doesn't reply.
I can't personally edit the documentation to add this information, because I am new to this whole affair, and thus cannot comment intelligently on what has been going on. I am also not a representative of OPNSense, so it would be inappropriate.
My trust in OPNSense is undecided as of now, because of this failure to address these issues. Even if you don't cover all of them, there are a lot of them that keep coming up. It may also be a good idea to explain some of the deceptive behavior engaged in by PfSense/Netgate (or whatever their parent company is now called). The failure to release source code/build tools is a big deal, and you should really explain that in the "Why did we fork section".