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Network Associates Aquires Deersoft Inc.

Posted by chrisd on from the hope-that-they-don't-ruin-it dept.

Duncan Findlay writes "Network Associates Inc. has just acquired Deersoft, Inc., which is known by many as the creator of SpamAssassin Pro, the proprietary (Windows) version of the GPL/PAL licensed SpamAssassin (Mirrors: Eastern US, Europe). It seems that we may see parts of SpamAssassin under the McAfee name within 6 months. You can also read the story at Yahoo or at Reuters. Unfortunately, the SpamAssassin trademark was owned by Deersoft, so hypothetically, NAI could force us to call the Open Source project something else!"

7 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Assassin was ok, but I liked this better by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

    www.cloudmark.com

    SpamNet is actually somewhat better at intelligently filtering out trash.

  2. Re:Wait no further... by SoSueMe · · Score: 5, Informative

    Working link.

  3. Prior use is a valid defense by kramer · · Score: 3, Informative

    Assuming anything happens on the trademark front Deersoft owning the SpamAssassin trademark is relatively pointless. IIRC Spamassassin was called spamassassin long before deersoft registered the trademark, or even considered a windows version. Use of a trademark prior to it being registered is a vaild defense against a trademark infringement cliam, and can actually should the spamassassin folks choose be grounds to have deersoft's trademark squashed.

  4. The biggest tragedy and doom for Spamassassin by rw2 · · Score: 3, Informative

    With apologies to the many who have contributed to SA in the past, Spamassassin was basically the work of three people. Craig, Justin and Matt. Between the three of them that's the *vast* majority of the work that was done on that project.

    Here's the troubling part.

    Craig and Justin owned the trademark and now work for NAI on the proprietary version (to be named "SpamKiller" apparently) and Matt's company has pulled him off because there is a conflict of interest in having him work on open source being fed back into NAI.

    So the three captains of this project are now gone. This doesn't bode well for the future of SA.

    Sucks.

    1. Re:The biggest tragedy and doom for Spamassassin by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      From the FAQ. Note the starred portion

      Q. What will be the status of the open source product following the acquisition?

      The SpamAssassin open source project will continue and *will be maintained by its current authors including Justin Mason and Craig Hughes*. Mason and Hughes will be employees of Network Associates and will devote their energies to the development of the proprietary McAfee product.

    2. Re:The biggest tragedy and doom for Spamassassin by rw2 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Mod the parent down, he highlighted the wrong portion.

      The highlighted portion should have been:

      The SpamAssassin open source project will continue and will be maintained by its current authors including Justin Mason and Craig Hughes. Mason and Hughes will be employees of Network Associates and will devote their energies to the development of the proprietary McAfee product.

      Now having said that, Justin has posted saying that even for the last four months he's been working for Deersoft and still working on OS so there is some reason to hope. Craig's been pretty busy though and difficult to contact, so I wouldn't bet on him being able to spend much time on the OS portion going forward and Matt has officially dropped out.

  5. Re:Name change must be a joke by belphegore · · Score: 3, Informative

    The SpamAssasssin open-source project is licensed under the "same license as Perl itself" -- ie a dual PAL/GPL where the licensee can choose which license they wish to use. Deersoft used the open-source engine as the spam-identification component of (at time of acquisition) two products: an Outlook plugin, and an Exchange server plugin. There's a lot of windows/outlook/exchange-specific code in there which is covered under a commercial (not currently open-source) license, and these parts of the software are kept quite separate from the open-source bits.

    We're currently floating between meeting after meeting after meeting with the Network Associates folks, trying to nail down timelines, roadmaps, etc. and will have more information hopefully soon.

    Through the merger process, one of my main concerns was trying to ensure the preservation and independence of all aspects of the open source project. This was partially reflected in the press release announcing the acquisition, but I think that was written by a marketroid who doesn't necessarily understand what Open Source even means.

    If you want to contact me directly, please email me at craig@deersoft.com or craig@hughes-family.org and I'll try and get answers to any questions you may have -- be warned though that NAI is a large company with the typical slowness associated with large organizations.

    Craig Hughes