GNU / Linux based Anti Virus Software!

[Miguel Koren O´ Brien de Lacy]

Rishi;

I think it's important to take a look at an actual license and have a lawyer go
over it. Perhaps someone could could include the Sophos license to look at? I
don't have it since I am still using the evaluation software from their site.
On the other hand, I think that the whole idea of "per mailbox" is very
unreasonable, contrary to the notion os "users" and perhaps not even
enforceable (have to see the license, though) because I don't see why I would
be prohibited from having a separate "server" to which I would ftp files to be
scanned by just 1 Sophos (or other) license (maybe Mail Scanner can do this in
the current version?). It would be like Microsoft saying that you have to pay
for x windows 98 licenses, for 1 PC, if there are x persons in your family. In
other words, the "intent" to use the software (the intent to protect the
mailbox) justifies charging a price for it? So the concept of "user" and
"mailbox" seem to be confused here. The actual "user" of the Sophos software is
user "sav" (in my case).

Of course, the software companies don't care if you can or can not afford to
pay for all your mailboxes :-). If you can not they don't want you to use their
software. I think it's time to have a license analyzed by a lawyer.

Miguel

Rishi Gangoly wrote:

> > At 18:20 15/02/2002, you wrote:
> > >Is MailScanner planning to get OpenAntiVirus to work as one for the
> > >scanners?
> >
> > At some point, yes. However, I don't think it is urgent as I don't really
> > believe that many large sites will trust their anti-virus support to an
> > open-source project with voluntarily-supplied updates. The crucial bit in
> > virus support these days is that you can get updates for your package
> > within a few hours of a virus being seen in the wild for the first time,
> > and I don't really believe that a voluntary project can achieve the sort
> of
> > speed you can manage by paying people to sit there all day writing virus
> > updates.
> > --
> > Julian Field                Teaching Systems Manager
>
> True, but what I'm most disappointed about all the Anti Virus companies is
> that they charge for their Linux command line scanner per mailbox, which is
> nuts.
>
> I can't afford to pay for 800 mailboxes (and growing) on my Cobalt Domain
> that I host with for all my customers. I am currently Virtual Hosting on the
> Cobalt RaQ3 server for about 16 - 20 domains.
>
> All Anti Virus companies have in their license agreements a clause saying
> it's fine to use it for a Server but not for Mail Server (i.e. SMTP not
> allowed)
>
> If I use it to scan mailboxes, they want to DING us big time.
>
> Is what I'm saying true?
>
> My Customers can't afford to pay per mailbox.
>
> What are your thoughts?
>
> Regards
>
> Rishi