At Tue Jan 7 22:56:43 2003, Barry Jaspan wrote: > > Everyone, please calm down! > > The amount of confusion on this list is staggering. One very important > point that many people seem to be missing: > > Network Associates did *not* buy SpamAssassin! > > NAI bought Deersoft, Inc. Deersoft develops and sells some products, and > NAI now owns those. Deersoft's products incorporate SpamAssassin, probably > including some custom modifications to SpamAssassin. But Deersoft did not > own SpamAssassin, because it is open-source under the GPL or PAL. So NAI > doesn't own it, either.
It depends what you mean by "own". Software is not tangible property, so there's no physical property you can point at. However, I suspect NAI now hold the copyright on a substantial proportion of SpamAssassin. Open-source != copyright-free. Someone has to be in the position of copyright holder in order to grant you a licence to use the software (in this case the GNU GPL or Perl Artistic Licence). (IANAL) Martin -- Martin Radford | "Only wimps use tape backup: _real_ [EMAIL PROTECTED] | men just upload their important stuff -o) Registered Linux user #9257 | on ftp and let the rest of the world /\\ - see http://counter.li.org | mirror it ;)" - Linus Torvalds _\_V ------------------------------------------------------- This SF.NET email is sponsored by: SourceForge Enterprise Edition + IBM + LinuxWorld = Something 2 See! http://www.vasoftware.com _______________________________________________ Spamassassin-talk mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/spamassassin-talk
