Comments on: Initially Evaluating SmoothWall Guardian for Content Filtering http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/ David Szpunar: Lead Engineer, PC Help Services Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:48:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 By: David Szpunar http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-143 David Szpunar Wed, 30 May 2007 13:48:14 +0000 http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/#comment-143 Open source often relies on public contributors; I know people that contribute freely to several projects, including Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. The quantity of users makes a difference, as does the type of software and the programming language, etc. I'm sure it's different for every project. I would expect Daniel has a better knowledge of DansGuardian's specifici contributors than most :-) I do intend to talk to SmoothWall; my time is unfortunately spread thin enough right now that I've only been able to work on content filtering research in spurts. My only experience with the company directly has been reading their website. I did just receive an email from someone working for them who had read this article (as I was reading this thread in fact--the irony! :-) so perhaps I'll be talking to them sooner rather than later. Open source often relies on public contributors; I know people that contribute freely to several projects, including Mozilla Firefox and Thunderbird. The quantity of users makes a difference, as does the type of software and the programming language, etc. I’m sure it’s different for every project. I would expect Daniel has a better knowledge of DansGuardian’s specifici contributors than most :-)

I do intend to talk to SmoothWall; my time is unfortunately spread thin enough right now that I’ve only been able to work on content filtering research in spurts. My only experience with the company directly has been reading their website. I did just receive an email from someone working for them who had read this article (as I was reading this thread in fact–the irony! :-) so perhaps I’ll be talking to them sooner rather than later.

]]> By: Daniel Barron http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-142 Daniel Barron Wed, 30 May 2007 08:47:55 +0000 http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/#comment-142 Matthew, please don't post FUD like that. It's completely wrong and how could you possibly know? It is extremely rare for open source users to contribute anything other than testing and requests. 99.9 (if not 100)% of improvements for the commercial version over the Express version come from full time programmers working for SmoothWall. The same sort of thing goes for DansGuardian. Don't get me wrong that the testing is not good. The testing that Open Source users give is invaluable. They just don't tend to provide code. There are a few rare exceptions of course. What do you mean about "seemed a little off to me"? With regards comments on the evaluation agreement - don't assume anything sinister. It's just a bog standard agreement and there are people at SmoothWall who would be happy to discuss it and listen to suggestions. Matthew, please don’t post FUD like that. It’s completely wrong and how could you possibly know? It is extremely rare for open source users to contribute anything other than testing and requests. 99.9 (if not 100)% of improvements for the commercial version over the Express version come from full time programmers working for SmoothWall. The same sort of thing goes for DansGuardian. Don’t get me wrong that the testing is not good. The testing that Open Source users give is invaluable. They just don’t tend to provide code. There are a few rare exceptions of course.

What do you mean about “seemed a little off to me”?

With regards comments on the evaluation agreement – don’t assume anything sinister. It’s just a bog standard agreement and there are people at SmoothWall who would be happy to discuss it and listen to suggestions.

]]> By: Matthew Irvine http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/comment-page-1/#comment-105 Matthew Irvine Sun, 13 May 2007 04:19:11 +0000 http://infotech.davidszpunar.com/2007/05/12/initially-evaluating-smoothwall-guardian-for-content-filtering/#comment-105 They've always seemed a little off to me. They push users to the commercial versions, which makes sense, but rely heavily on open source users to provide improvements for the commercial versions. That licensing language concerns me a bit too. Still, I've been ultimately pleased with the performance of their free software. Thanks for the props! They’ve always seemed a little off to me. They push users to the commercial versions, which makes sense, but rely heavily on open source users to provide improvements for the commercial versions. That licensing language concerns me a bit too. Still, I’ve been ultimately pleased with the performance of their free software.

Thanks for the props!

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