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Nessus Closes Source

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the say-it-ain't-so dept.

JBOD writes "As reported at news.com, the makers of the popular security tool Nessus are closing its source code. Although it will will remain free as in beer, Nessus is dropping the GPL license for the upcoming version 3 of the software. The problem appears to be that Tenable Network Security (the company which primary author Renaud Deraison founded around Nessus) isn't making money because it's competition is simply repackaging their product. Deraison's writes "A number of companies are using the source code against us, by selling or renting appliances, thus exploiting a loophole in the GPL. So in that regard, we have been fueling our competition, and we want to put an end to that." He also notes that the OSS community has contributed very little to Nessus in the past six years, so they were reaping no benefit from using the GPL." Update: 10/06 22:48 GMT by CN : Nessus' Renaud Deraison wrote me to let me know that the company is "good money-wise," but has become annoyed with competitors repackaging their product.

9 of 394 comments (clear)

  1. That Should Be by TubeSteak · · Score: 1, Funny

    That should be the GNU/OSS community
    /End Joke

    --
    [Fuck Beta]
    o0t!
  2. time to spoon! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    No, fork.

  3. Competitors by SpaceAdmiral · · Score: 4, Funny

    If their competitors were just repackaging their software, they should have put some massive bugs in it.

  4. Re:nessus is dead, long live gnessus? by dekemoose · · Score: 3, Funny

    So a project which was getting very little contribution from the OSS community is going to be forked into a different project that will get all sorts of support from the OSS community? Good luck with that.

  5. Free as in Kool-aid by Thud457 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Is this Kool-aid free as in beer or free as in openCola?

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  6. Re:Free as in Kool-aid by Philip+K+Dickhead · · Score: 4, Funny

    Free as in Jim Jones

    --
    "Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
  7. Re:nessus is dead, long live gnessus? by kindbud · · Score: 2, Funny

    If it were me, I'd name the fork of Nessus "Known Space". Great name for a tool of discovery, that expands on the "Nessus" idea.

    --
    Edith Keeler Must Die
  8. Complex config files? by Crizp · · Score: 2, Funny
    Oh, and using a hugely complex configuration file (cf. httpd, sendmail!) will net more consultancy fees.

    OK, the Sendmail cf is truly mind-taxing, and the manual equally so (to me at least), but I just don't get what's supposed to be so insanely difficult about Apache's config. I, at least, have always found it to be one of the most understandable configs out there (apart from mod_rewrite though) and the manual is excellent. What's the deal here?

    BIND config - now that's a candidate for an Extreme Makeover if I ever saw one.

  9. Speaker to Animals plugin? by ManyLostPackets · · Score: 2, Funny

    Uncheck this option to avoid killing (and eating) your sensitive network devices.