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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!"

2 of 127 comments (clear)

  1. Name change must be a joke by iamacat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I assume Deersoft is the company that released regular SpamAsassin under GPL. In this case, I don't think they can remove GPL from any part of the code, including it's name. If they just used GPL code from other people, they would have to either release source code for the PRO version or license the original one separately. Even then, GPL license would still protect everyone's right to use the name. Not a lawyer, just seems common sense.

  2. Just the name? by mmoncur · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hope the name SpamAssassin is all they have the rights to. It seems like there might be some messy legal issues here.

    Also, if this goes as mainstream as it looks like it's going, we might need a different open-source spam filter after all - because NAI's product will be the one the spammers will be testing on and trying to get past.

    OTOH, maybe NAI throwing money at this will make ISPs everywhere notice and start taking spam a bit more seriously.

    Anyway, while it lasts, SpamAssassin (or whatever we call it) is excellent. The new Bayesian filtering in the upcoming 2.50 is working wonders.

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