[ Thanks to An Anonymous
Reader for this link. ]
“Being bought by a commercial competitor is about the
best possible thing that could eventually happen to a popular, pure
FOSS project. It seems contrary to the vision of free software, and
yet it’s true if people like Daniel Cid, founder of Open Source
Security, Host-Based Intrusion Detection System (OSSEC) and HD
Moore, founder of Metasploit, are to be believed. (And they would
know.)“Favorite open source security and compliance tools
“Daniel CidI recently interviewed Daniel Cid (pictured) because
OSSEC was one of the first fully free security projects ever to be
acquired by a commercial entity. (Know of an earlier one? Leave me
a comment and I’ll write an update on that project, too). True,
plenty of open source projects have been bought — but I’m talking
about an acquisition of a “basement built” FOSS project with no
commercial version. (Ok, it might have been developed in a
comfortable home office, or the local coffee shop.)“Daniel has two years experience of the free-to-commercial
transition under his belt, and while the sale didn’t make him as
rich as Larry Ellison, he does say that it was by far the best
thing that could have happened to OSSEC.”