Sourcefire Aquires ClamAV

exi1ed0ne · Unread post by **exi1ed0ne** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:12 am

I found this interesting development in my inbox this morning. I have a lot of respect for the Sourcefire folks due to their good relationship with the Snort community, but I got nervous anyway:

Dear ClamAV users,

On August 17, Sourcefire, the creators of Snort, acquired the ClamAV project.
The full announcement is available here:

http://www.sourcefire.com/products/clamav/

We'd like to thank everyone in the ClamAV community for their dedication to the project. The acquisition by Sourcefire is a testament to the hard work of the entire ClamAV community in developing cutting edge technology that truly showcases the promise of the open source model. With the additional resources Sourcefire will provide we look forward to working with the community to continue the advancement of ClamAV.

Sourcefire now owns ClamAV project and related trademarks, as well as the source code copyrights held by the five principal members of the ClamAV team. Sourcefire will also assume control of the ClamAV project including: the ClamAV.org domain, web site and web site content; and the ClamAV Sourceforge project page.

What's most important is that from the end-user perspective very little will change beyond the additional resources Sourcefire will provide in our continued efforts to advance the ClamAV technology and improve our ability to interact with the open source community. The core team will continue to lead the advancement of ClamAV and the CVD as employees of Sourcefire. Both the ClamAV engine and the signature database will remain under GPL.

For more information please visit our website and the following FAQ page:

http://www.clamav.net/support/sf-faq

The ClamAV core team.

breun · Unread post by **breun** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:23 am

What's making you nervous?

exi1ed0ne · Unread post by **exi1ed0ne** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 9:42 am

Change.

Unread post by **scott** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:23 am

Heh, its still GPL'd code, and there are independent projects that contribute to the signature DB's. Besides sourcefire has been a good community contributor with snort.

exi1ed0ne · Unread post by **exi1ed0ne** » Fri Aug 17, 2007 11:53 am

True. My only concern is that Sourcefire goes the same way Nessus did. There is nothing preventing them from making ClamAV 1.0 closed or subscription based. Since they hired all the core developers, this would leave a lot of folks waiting for some kind souls to do a quality fork.

Not saying they would actually do any such thing - I respect them and Marty a lot - I've been a happy snorter since before the ACID days (hehe). They in all likelihood will make things better, but it does warrant keeping half an eye on to see how the two groups mesh.