On Tue, 11 Jan 2005 17:44:48 -0500, Daniel L. Hunter
<dhunter at techmethods dot com> wrote:
> 
> I notice that a lot of the people on this mailing list are consultants,
> as am I 

As am I.


> I'm currently using M0n0wall to protect several different
> networks.  My question is this; Is anyone selling M0n0wall as a solution
> to their clients?  

Yes.

> Do you find that M0n0wall mature enough as a product
> to sell?  

Absolutely.  The only time I'd recommend a commercial solution over
m0n0wall is when there's some specific custom features that


> I wouldn't actually be selling the firewall as much as charging
> for my time setting up and configuring it.  

That's what I do.  Sell either a WRAP or Soekris board at cost, and
charge hourly for installation/support.


> 
> Are the makers of (and contributors to) M0n0wall opposed to people
> making money off of this great product?  In general, how do you all feel
> about consultants making money off of open source tools?
> 

The BSD license is designed to let people do whatever they want with
the software.  You could rebrand m0n0wall, as so long as you meet the
simple provisions of the BSD license, sell it for however much you
want, change it, anything without releasing your changes.  The last
part is the difference between the GPL and the BSD license.  GPL you
have to release changes if you distribute the software.

The mindset of most all BSD developers is that the fact that you can
do this is a *good thing*.

Ideally if you sell it you should contribute back to the project,
either with code, documentation, mailing list help, financial
donation, or something.  It's not a requirement though.  You can argue
the ethics of doing such a thing, but it's completely legal.  If you
can get somebody to pay a million [insert local currency here] for
m0n0wall, you're free to sell it for that with no obligation.

Personally I've put in at least an hour of work on the project for
every dollar I've made off of it, but that's certainly outside the
norm.

-Chris