Re: cable modem access

[Joseph S D Yao <jsdy () cospo osis gov>]

Ryan Russell grumbled:
> I would suspect that the folks who do commercial support of
> Free software might view questions for help with setting
> firewall/filtering rules as akin to asking how to use an
> application.  I.e., that's not covered; take a class or read a book.
> Call us with a simple-answer question or when something is broken.
> FAQs do exist for a number of the Free packages, but they are
> written to an audience with a certain level of expertise.
>
> Lest I get flamed for bashing Free software, let me say
> that I would pick the Linux/IP-chains/FWTK setup for home.
> I'm just giving my view of reality ask to why someone
> would pick something different.
>
>                     Ryan

The "best support" award of some magazine went to the Linux community
as a whole, instead of to any commercial company, because of their
overall willingness to help in cases like this.

For what it's worth.

And, yes, there are also individuals who will answer as Ryan has
suggested.  What they're doing on a "help-me" type of mailing list or
newsgroup, I don't know.

;-)

Either Linux or one of the *BSDs form good bases for the type of
application the original writer was asking about.  There are also ones
with commercial support, such as BSDI's BSD/OS, or one of the corporate
Linux distributions [Red Hat, Caldera, SuSe, etc.].  One would have to
ask them individually about whether they would support a firewall app.

--
Joe Yao                         jsdy () cospo osis gov - Joseph S. D. Yao
COSPO/OSIS Computer Support                                     EMT-A/B
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