Fair, I was being loose with my language. What I should have said is that it does not come fully featured open source, that you need to do a certain amount of rolling your own.

The same could be said for a webserver, a radius server, etc. I mean ssh "requires" a network to be remotely useful :)

Edit, since I can't reply sadly:

You're right, that was a bad example.

I can probably list at least a few dozen things that all require certificates though, which was really my point. Everything has dependencies.

Also if you just... Don't trust big tech, run your own CA.

Right, but if certificates are a fundamental part of your design, you should include the functional mechanisms to manage them imho (i.e., key distribution, auth/login). The developers created it, but they keep it in the commercial product. Other overlays which use PKI include those functions in the FOSS.

nah, I dont buy that. A network is not a functional requirement of SSH etc in your use case.