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<td width=40%><font size=1 face="sans-serif"><b>Fyodor <fyodor@insecure.org></b>
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<br><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Sent by: nmap-hackers-bounces@insecure.org</font>
<p><font size=1 face="sans-serif">10/05/2005 04:43 PM</font>
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<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">To</font></div>
<td valign=top><font size=1 face="sans-serif">nmap-hackers@insecure.org</font>
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<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">cc</font></div>
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<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Subject</font></div>
<td valign=top><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Nessus closes source =>
How to help open source projects</font></table>
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<br><font size=2><tt>Nmap Hackers,<br>
<br>
In the last Insecure.Org Security Tools survey, you guys proudly voted<br>
Nessus #1. It complements the functionality of Nmap by going further<br>
to detect application-level vulnerabilities. Then in February of
this<br>
year, Tenable changed the Nessus license to further restrict the<br>
plugins and require that you fax them a permission request form before<br>
you use Nessus for any consulting engagements. Renaud wrote to this<br>
list on Feb 8<br>
(http://seclists.org/lists/nmap-hackers/2005/Jan-Mar/0001.html),<br>
explaining that their new slogan ("the open-source vulnerability<br>
scanner") was accurate because the engine was still open source.<br>
Today, their slogan has changed to "the network vulnerability<br>
scanner", and you can probably guess what that means. In the<br>
announcement below, Renaud announces that Nessus 3 (due in a couple<br>
weeks) will be binary only and forbid redistribution. They say it<br>
will be free, for now, if you use the delayed plugin feed. They have<br>
also announced that Nessus 3 will be faster and contain various other<br>
improvements. They promise to maintain GPL Nessus 2 for a while,
but<br>
I wouldn't count on that lasting long.<br>
<br>
I am not taking a position on this move, but I do feel it is worth<br>
noting for the many Nessus users on this list. Tenable argues that<br>
this move is necessary to further improve Nessus and/or make more<br>
money. Perhaps so, but the Nmap Project has no plans to follow suit.<br>
Nmap has been GPL since its creation more than 8 years ago and I am<br>
happy with that license.<br>
<br>
When asked why they are making this change, Renaud replied to the<br>
Nessus list today that open source hasn't really worked for Nessus<br>
because "virtually nobody has ever contributed anything to improve
the<br>
scanning _engine_ over the last 6 years." This may be the most<br>
important and useful point we can take from this change. Open source<br>
really is a two-way street. The only way we (open source projects)<br>
can seriously compete with projects staffed by dozens or hundreds of<br>
paid full time developers is by having hundreds or thousands of<br>
volunteers each contributing a little bit part time. So if you are
a<br>
heavy user of open source software, please think about how you can<br>
help out. Here are some ideas:<br>
<br>
o If you are feeling ambitious, write and distribute your own little<br>
program to solve a problem you are having or otherwise makes your<br>
life easier. It doesn't have to be anything big or fancy at
first.<br>
Nmap started out as a little 2,000-line utility published in Phrack<br>
magazine. Post your creation to Freshmeat, or to nmap-dev
if it<br>
relates to Nmap in some way. Hmm, I think there is a current
vacuum<br>
in the open source vulnerability scanner field :).<br>
<br>
o Or take a more active coding role for an existing open source<br>
project. In the Nmap world, former Google SoC students are<br>
developing three promising projects: NmapGUI and UMIT are new GUIs<br>
and results viewers for large Nmap scans, and Ncat is a powerful<br>
reinterpretation of the venerable Netcat. Working code for
all<br>
three of these is available if you join the Nmap-dev list<br>
(http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-dev) and I'm sure
the<br>
respective authors (Ole Morten Grodaas, Adriano Monteiro, and Chris<br>
Gibson) would appreciate help, feedback, and testing.<br>
<br>
o Find a bug in some open source software? Try to reproduce it with<br>
the latest version of the software and do some web searching to
see<br>
if it is already known/fixed. If not, report it with full
details<br>
about how to reproduce it and the platform and software version
of<br>
the software you are running. It is even better if you can
submit a<br>
patch which fixes the problem.<br>
<br>
o Join the relevant mailing lists for the project and help out new<br>
users. Maybe you can write or translate some documentation,
such as a<br>
tutorial for using the product or a HOWTO for using it to solve
a<br>
common need.<br>
<br>
o The Nmap Project does not accept financial donations, but many other<br>
projects do. If some little project does exactly what you
need and<br>
saves you half a day of work or makes it into your regular-usage<br>
arsenal of tools, consider kicking the author back $5 or $10. Not<br>
only will it help defray costs of the project, but it shows the
author<br>
that users really appreciate his/her work and thus makes a newer<br>
version more likely. Similarly, if you see an ad on the project<br>
web site that interests you, click on it and spend a couple minutes<br>
checking the product out.<br>
<br>
o Spread the word! Commercial software houses pay to spread the word<br>
about their product in magazines, web sites, TV, conferences, etc.<br>
Open source projects such as Nmap can't. So if you find a
project<br>
useful, don't hesitate to post a link on your web page and mention
it<br>
(including the URL) on mailing list, newsgroup, and web forum posts.<br>
<br>
Those are a few ideas, and I'm sure you can think of more based on<br>
your experience, expertise, and available resources. Rather than
mope<br>
over the loss of open source Nessus, we can treat this as a call to<br>
action and a reminder not to take valuable open source software such<br>
as Ethereal, DSniff, Ettercap, gcc, emacs, apache, OpenBSD, and Linux<br>
for granted.<br>
<br>
Cheers,<br>
Fyodor<br>
<br>
PS: Here is the Nessus announcement:<br>
<br>
----- Forwarded message from Renaud Deraison <rderaison@tenablesecurity.com>
-----<br>
<br>
Date: Wed, 5 Oct 2005 12:16:45 -0400<br>
X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.734)<br>
From: Renaud Deraison <rderaison@tenablesecurity.com><br>
To: nessus@list.nessus.org, nessus-announce@list.nessus.org<br>
Cc: <br>
Subject: [Nessus-announce] Nessus Roadmap / Nessus 3.0.0rc1 testers wanted<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
Hi everyone,<br>
<br>
<br>
We are a few weeks away from releasing Nessus 3.0.0, and I'd like to <br>
take some time to explain our roadmap in this regard.<br>
<br>
Nessus 3 / Nessus 2 Roadmap<br>
----------------------------<br>
<br>
<br>
Nessus 3 is major enhancement of the key components of the Nessus <br>
engine - the NASL3 intepreter has been rewritten from scratch, the <br>
process management has changed to reduce the overhead of executing a <br>
plugin (instead of creating NxM processes, nessusd now only creates N <br>
processes), the way plugins are stored has been improved to reduce <br>
disk usage, etc...<br>
<br>
Nessus 3 also contains a lot of built-in features and checks to debug <br>
crashes and mis-behaving plugins more easily, and to catch <br>
inconsistencies early.<br>
<br>
<br>
As a result, Nessus 3 is much faster than Nessus 2 and less resource <br>
intensive. Your mileage may vary, but when scanning a local network, <br>
Nessus 3 is on average twice as fast as Nessus 2, with spikes going <br>
as high as 5 times faster when scanning desktop windows systems.<br>
<br>
<br>
Nessus 3 will be available free of charge, including on the Windows <br>
platform, but will not be released under the GPL.<br>
<br>
Nessus 3 will be available for many platforms, but do understand that <br>
we won't be able to support every distribution / operating system <br>
available. I also understand that some free software advocates won't <br>
want to use a binary-only Nessus 3. This is why Nessus 2 will <br>
continue to be maintained and will stay under the GPL.<br>
<br>
To make things simple :<br>
<br>
- Nessus 2 : GPL, will have regular releases containing bug fixes<br>
- Nessus 3 : free of charge, contains major improvements<br>
<br>
<br>
The two versions can share most of their plugins -- we intend to <br>
maintain backward compatibility whenever possible for most <br>
vulnerability checks. Some checks will only work on Nessus 3 (ie: we <br>
are about to release a set of plugins to determine policy <br>
compliance), but the huge majority will work on either platform <br>
likewise.<br>
<br>
<br>
Finally, the Nessus GUI has been split in a separate project <br>
(NessusClient) which is released under the GPL. The 'nessus' client <br>
in Nessus3 is CLI only, as it will be in Nessus 2.4.x. For a GUI, use <br>
NessusClient.<br>
<br>
<br>
Testers needed<br>
---------------<br>
<br>
That being said, we are looking for experienced Nessus users who <br>
would want to try Nessus 3.0.0rc1. For the sake of simplicity, we <br>
would like users running on Red Hat ES3 or ES4 platforms or <br>
compatible. We are looking for people scanning big networks, mostly <br>
to collect performance information. Keep in mind that Nessus3 is CLI <br>
only, so you'll have to use NessusWX or be familiar with the CLI.<br>
<br>
<br>
If you are interested in testing Nessus 3.0.0rc1, please drop me a <br>
line at <deraison@nessus.org> (no @gmail/@hotmail/@anonymous accounts
<br>
please).<br>
<br>
<br>
Thanks,<br>
<br>
-- Renaud<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
_______________________________________________<br>
Nessus-announce mailing list<br>
Nessus-announce@list.nessus.org<br>
http://mail.nessus.org/mailman/listinfo/nessus-announce<br>
<br>
----- End forwarded message -----<br>
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_______________________________________________<br>
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http://cgi.insecure.org/mailman/listinfo/nmap-hackers<br>
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