Ever since cmb sold to netgate the Pfsense project has been run by people who I suspect are working hard to find a way to stop releasing open source versions.

FYI, my observations as an outsider are the project went through three phases of owners:

BSD Perimeter is owner and starts open source fork creating open source releases = CMB and Scott as founders.

Electric Sheep Fencing ownership is a result of CMB taking more of the day to day while Scott bows out and Netgate starts funding things / sinking hooks in. Open source continues to be important and CMB is in charge for the most part.

Netgate ownership completes obtaining full ownership / gets their hooks into every bit of the project. We see annoying screen about licensing and they start nonsense with OPNSense to flex their tiny muscles.

FYI netgate hardware isn’t bad and you get stellar support for what is currently an open source product but they have worked hard to fracture the hard won trust CMB had been building up in the community.