UTM 9 to open source after EOL ?

from the user alan weir and i am also interested in an answer:

The benefit to mankind would be to release the source code of UTM and make it open source once it reaches EOL. This probably won't happen but for such a great piece of software to be abandoned and lost and forgotten would be a shame. 

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  • I think it's worth consideration to allow disabled functions to at least be viewable. That is so one could view the settings to attempt to replicate on a different platform.

    Completely locking the user out from even being able to view would be an unfortunate decision.

  • I'm not sure I understand your point here. My answer was in response to the request about making the codebase of the UTM open source. When I mentioned 'licensing' I was referring to the terms of the software use licenses that govern the various software components and products that are used as part of the UTM software.

    It sounds like you're referring to the ability to access the UTM's UI after the product license/subscriptions expire, to reference the settings on the device. Is that right?

  • I suppose either this one or the other thread in this subforum are appropriate to this query.

    But yes, access to settings after license/sub expires.

    Come to think of it, it has been standard practice in the past to lock the user out of everything but the licensing portion of the ui at license expiration.

    However, EOL != license expiration. With the latter, there was an option to renew, not so with the former.

    As such, consideration should be given to keeping the options accessible, even if non functional.

  • That makes sense. We will certainly give that some consideration. I believe it really only applies to Software licenses - SG Appliance licenses allow the customer to continue accessing the UI after subscriptions expire.

    Obviously, the best approach is for customers to use the next 3 years to make sure they are prepared for the end-of-life, but I know from personal experience that things don't always work out that way ;-)

  • Hello RichBaldry, that's exactly how it is: things don't always work out that way ;-)

    For example, I have several friends and family running Sophos UTM 9.x with connected AP30, AP50 and in a few places the somewhat newer AP15/AP15C. My grandmother alone, who is now 90 years old, or both of my aunts, who are almost 80 years old, will refuse to allow me to change the entire infrastructure until 2026, .. once again on their few last days on this planet^^.
    So it would be more than very helpful if you could enable an unlimited licence, which would then no longer be supported at all and would certainly not receive any updates, but which could simply be used indefinitely.

  • I second this. There are a number of older home users that I have deployed SG to that are VERY remote. Now that I am also more remote that I used to be, getting to them to swap out the firewall for something else is going to be a very difficult task. I could ship to most of them, but one of them doesn't get deliveries and is 135kms away from the nearest town, but Auspost don't even get that close - they need to travel a further 70kms to get to the post to pick up a shipment...

    On a side note - I have spent countless hours messing around with XG/SFOS - not anywhere near as impressed, but it will work for most of these remote people without issue (once I can get home licenses to actually activate on an appliance). Instead of sunsetting UTM9 completely renderring it completely inoperable, it would be good to have an option for an infinte home license - even if updates are not developed, but the rest of the home licensed functions continue to, well, function, that would be ideal.

  • I do understand that supporting 2 products is not a good solution and yes the systems is build on legacy linux in some ways, i understand that.  But as a network engineer that do a lot of rules i can't wrap my head around this backward thinking that made the ui so bad i "nextgen"  the ui is still Cyberoam and no one that actually knows the UTM and still uses it can se Nextgen firewall replacement.  it is at best a downgrade that we can't accept.

    Will you please try to opensource as much of the source as possible. 


  • Instead of sunsetting UTM9 completely renderring it completely inoperable, it would be good to have an option for an infinte home license - even if updates are not developed, but the rest of the home licensed functions continue to, well, function, that would be ideal.

    Thumbsup tone1Thumbsup tone1 It would not only be good but absolutely necessary.