The slashdot community is quick to see underlying dodgy behaviour by company, and/. is the place where we voice our concerns. Any company publishing GPLed software (etc) would be crazy to outright ignore said concerns. It makes me smile when things change because the voice of the masses is heard.
A few months ago we started a Smoothwall rollout primarily to secure a VPN between twelve sites across Australia. It's an awesome package. (Why? See below...)
After reading the article,/.comments and other references to Mr Morrell, I was quite perturbed by his general arrogance and self importance. So much that I wondered what the future would hold for Smoothwall.
Mr Morrell seemed to need reminding that it is his choice to spend his time/effort/funds in this project. With the right attitude, that will net an awful lot of respect from his peers and this community. I realise respect doesn't buy bread and milk, but that's a limitation of free software - inherently. Given that he seems to have such a problem with newbies asking dumb questions, perhaps he should start a business selling support, like so many other free software projects...
As a side serve: Was it just me or did Jürgen Schmidt have it in for Morrell and proceed to take his aggression out on his review of Smoothwall? I hate when that happens.
below:
Bootable CD, 20Mb iso
Intuitive web interface with embedded help
Pretty damn good hardware support
Web cache
Remote admin
Support for ISDN, Cable modem & modem
A most excellent array of acronyms to boot! (VPN, DHCP, DNS, DMZ, ID)
We developed a set of rules. Some of them where obvious like "don't shoot harvesters" etc. But other ones: max harvesters = 2, can't move harvesters into enemy base defences, don't attack before time x, don't nuke any tyberium fields...
It was possible to play a strategic game as soon as both players agreed not to tank-rush. We had games that lasted 5 hours with the balance of power swinging multiple times. What made the game so fun was instances like this:
Six NOD stealth tanks approached the mammoth tank, guarding a river crossing point. My team on the East side of the river, Travis' on the West. The mammoth tank's turret was facing West. My stealth tanks de-clocked and let off a volley of six missiles. Immediately the turret spun to line up with my units. Travis attacked. My tanks cloaked before the turret lined up, and by the time the twelfth missile hit the mammoth was no more. Six stealth tanks dispersed...
One of my most useful tactics was cording of my base before the enemy explored it. Very useful, but difficult. Frequently the use of diversions was imperative, especially when a chinook was trying to land an engineer beside the enemy construction yard. SAM sites letting fly at the attack choppers, soaking up the damage.
Of course, an unstoppable 'tactic' was to build NOD bikes straight away and kill the enemy construction yard before they could replace it. But we all knew it was unstoppable, so playing out that scenario wasn't proving anything and it certainly wasn't fun.
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A few months ago we started a Smoothwall rollout primarily to secure a VPN between twelve sites across Australia. It's an awesome package. (Why? See below...)
After reading the article, /.comments and other references to Mr Morrell, I was quite perturbed by his general arrogance and self importance. So much that I wondered what the future would hold for Smoothwall.
Mr Morrell seemed to need reminding that it is his choice to spend his time/effort/funds in this project. With the right attitude, that will net an awful lot of respect from his peers and this community. I realise respect doesn't buy bread and milk, but that's a limitation of free software - inherently. Given that he seems to have such a problem with newbies asking dumb questions, perhaps he should start a business selling support, like so many other free software projects...
As a side serve: Was it just me or did Jürgen Schmidt have it in for Morrell and proceed to take his aggression out on his review of Smoothwall? I hate when that happens.
below:
Bootable CD, 20Mb iso
Intuitive web interface with embedded help
Pretty damn good hardware support
Web cache
Remote admin
Support for ISDN, Cable modem & modem
A most excellent array of acronyms to boot! (VPN, DHCP, DNS, DMZ, ID)
Six NOD stealth tanks approached the mammoth tank, guarding a river crossing point. My team on the East side of the river, Travis' on the West. The mammoth tank's turret was facing West. My stealth tanks de-clocked and let off a volley of six missiles. Immediately the turret spun to line up with my units. Travis attacked. My tanks cloaked before the turret lined up, and by the time the twelfth missile hit the mammoth was no more. Six stealth tanks dispersed...
One of my most useful tactics was cording of my base before the enemy explored it. Very useful, but difficult. Frequently the use of diversions was imperative, especially when a chinook was trying to land an engineer beside the enemy construction yard. SAM sites letting fly at the attack choppers, soaking up the damage.
Of course, an unstoppable 'tactic' was to build NOD bikes straight away and kill the enemy construction yard before they could replace it. But we all knew it was unstoppable, so playing out that scenario wasn't proving anything and it certainly wasn't fun.