Articles > Editorial
No more open-source Nessus
By IT-Observer Staff
Thursday, 6 October 2005 18:07 ESTThe source code of the much popular security tool Nessus will no longer be available for the public. Starting from the next release, Nessus will be distributed freely, but not under GPL.
“Nessus 3 will be available free of charge, including on the Windows platform, but will not be released under the GPL,” said Renaud Deraison, the creator in an email distributed among the software’s mailing list.
The creator claims that companies used the open-source license to compete the company – Tenable Network Security - he started in 2002 around Nessus.
"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. Nessus 3 contains an improved engine, and we don't want our competition to claim to have improved 'their' scanner,” said Deraison.