Cisco Open Sources Network Admission Control Client

According to 'Cisco going open source with NAC client':

As it develops the next generation of network security infrastructure, Cisco Systems Inc. is planning to cease development on its network admission control (NAC) client, the Cisco Trust Agent (CTA), and submit the source code for the software client to the open source community, Bob Gleichauf, CTO of Cisco's Security Technology Group, told InfoWorld.

Cisco has a goal of making the CTA open source within "a couple months," allowing the company to free up development resources for other areas of NAC, Gleichauf said. Cisco's decisionis more evidence that Cisco will cede control of the desktop to Microsoft Vista, following a deal in September to use the Microsoft's NAP (Network Access Protection Agent) as the client for both Cisco NAC and NAP.

"CTA will be something that's open source. That's just logically where it should end up," Gleichauf told InfoWorld. "We don't want to be in the CTA business, so we're going to just open it up."...

There's something which is somewhat notable about that last statement. During the 80s and 90s, a lot of companys would have sat on the copyright or patent; what Cisco Systems is doing is opening it up instead of letting it accumulate dust on the shelf. A business model of:

1. Proprietary code and Profit: Hold on to the code, charge customers for licenses.
2. Open Source: When the maintenance costs increase over a limit which is made by business decision, open source the code and let people use it. Let the community maintain it; if it is useful it will be maintained by those which find it useful

Opening the source in such a way doesn't hurt, but it can allow niches with business intelligence which is not mainstream to continue building their business intelligence.

Wouldn't it be novel (no pun intended) Microsoft folks had a choice now between buying Microsoft Windows Vista and sticking with an open source version of Microsoft Windows XP Professional? As I recall, a Windows license is for that version of OS or an earlier version.

Well then... that would mean that some people wouldn't upgrade.

Back to the Network Admission Control client of Cisco -

...Open sourcing the CTA agent is just part of a much larger effort at Cisco to push beyond mere network access control to a much broader security architecture that addresses problems such as data leaks and policy enforcement -- architecture in which Cisco's Security Agent (CSA) will play a much bigger role, Gleichauf said...

Its just about treating your customers right, and not leaving them holding a bag. Or, a box

No one was around on the Cisco Sim in SecondLife to discuss it (or did I miss something?). Maybe another time.