From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Oct 6 20:57:06 2005 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E387E16A41F for ; Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:57:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from smtpout.mac.com (smtpout.mac.com [17.250.248.85]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8EA9943D45 for ; Thu, 6 Oct 2005 20:57:06 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from mac.com (smtpin01-en2 [10.13.10.146]) by smtpout.mac.com (Xserve/8.12.11/smtpout03/MantshX 4.0) with ESMTP id j96Kv5N6026765; Thu, 6 Oct 2005 13:57:05 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [10.1.1.209] (nfw2.codefab.com [199.103.21.225] (may be forged)) (authenticated bits=0) by mac.com (Xserve/smtpin01/MantshX 4.0) with ESMTP id j96Kv391008247; Thu, 6 Oct 2005 13:57:04 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <058f01c5ca8f$a3ed7730$c901a8c0@workdog> References: <058f01c5ca8f$a3ed7730$c901a8c0@workdog> Mime-Version: 1.0 (Apple Message framework v734) X-Priority: 3 (Normal) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed Message-Id: Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit From: Charles Swiger Date: Thu, 6 Oct 2005 16:57:03 -0400 To: gayn.winters@bristolsystems.com X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.734) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Nessus no longer open source X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 06 Oct 2005 20:57:07 -0000 On Oct 6, 2005, at 12:04 PM, Gayn Winters wrote: > "Nessus 3 will be available for many platforms, but do understand that > we won't be able to support every distribution / operating system > available. I also understand that some free software advocates won't > want to use a binary-only Nessus 3. This is why Nessus 2 will > continue to be maintained and will stay under the GPL." > > I'm not sure if Nessus 3 will be supported as a FreeBSD package. Probably not-- if the new license for Nessus 3 forbids commercial redistribution, then we won't be able to provide a package. However, the FreeBSD ports system has options to handle software which is under a restrictive license or distributed only as a binary. > [ ... ] The thing that seems germane > to the FreeBSD community is that ports, even extremely popular > ones, are > vulnerable, since under the GPL the AUTHOR of the code is not bound by > the same restrictions that the users are. I'm not a lawyer, but as I > understand it, the author can create a derived work of something under > the GPL and license the derived work (a "rewrite" in the case of > nessus > 3) and arbitrarily restrict it. The author or copyright holder of software has the right to redistribute their software under other terms if they wish to do so; this has nothing to do with the GPL in particular, or even with creating derivative works in general. (One creates a derivative work when someone other than the original author makes changes to a work.) However, the GPL'ed version of the software, in this case Nessus 2, remains and will always remain available under the terms of the GPL. The decision to open source software is not revokable in that sense. People who are not happy with the direction Tenable is going with Nessus 3 could fork Nessus 2 and continue to develop it, if they choose to do so, with or without further contributions from Tenable. -- -Chuck