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Network Associates Aquires Deersoft Inc.
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!"
How about "CannedHamHitMan"? It rhymes at least...
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
McAfee needs to add in more functionality to remove Gator programs, and other software that installs itself off the web for corporate users. Basically, they need to buy out Adaware and incorporate it within McAfee to make systems 100% clean. Virus Scanners for some reason have been very slow to scan for Gator-like programs that get installed and run in the background without the users knowledge and consent (Autoinstalls from certain sites, etc) and rack itself up as a legit virii if i've ever seen one. Users want to buy this protection, they need to offer it.
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.
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.
It's Slashdot's evil twin... SlashNOT
Working link.
I bought a copy to use at home and 30 licenses for the office. The stuff works good.
They've continued to update the program and add more features. I get 50-100 spams per day and the program might miss one of them.
I hope they are getting a nice tasty payout from Network Associates.
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Since Hormel Foods owns the name "Spam," couldn't they force Network Associates to call their product "Nasty Synthetic Luncheon Meat Assassin"?
From a marketriod standpoint (IANAM), the word "Assassin" is too heavily conotated with the deliberate forcible termination of human life to be effective as part of a product name (unless you make assassination products!). Also, while SpamAssassin has great market penetration amongst the Slashdot crowd, I don't think it's so well known with the general public that they'll keep the brand name for recognition value.
"Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
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.