"In these cases, developers of open source licensed
code can fork a project and create a new application that takes a
different path than the original code. That's what happened with
the Nessus vulnerability scanner in 2005 which led to the OpenVAS
(Open Vulnerability Assessment System) project.
"OpenVAS is now out with its 2.0 release, which still shows some
of its Nessus roots but isn't focused on keeping up with what's
happening on the main Nessus effort. The Nessus fork is now carving
out its own niche and moving out of the shadow of its
creation."