Open source security arrives with Untangle

Now there is. Untangle has released its network gateway under GPVv2. CEO (and blogger)  Bob Walters compares his product to SONICwall and Watchguard, saying "we’ll sell services and premium products on top of it."

Load the software onto an unused server and you have the 14 applications security experts crave, everything from anti-virus and intrusion detection to anti-spam, anti-phish, and VPN applications.

"For the FOSS players we snapshotted the signature base as of last Tuesday and that’s free," Walters said. "You can also incorporate open source signature bases as they come up, running our scripts."

Even with paid updates on signatures and code we're talking here about a security solution small businesses can finally afford, from which small VARs can finally profit.

Think of it as 5th of July fireworks. Walters will be at OSCON and LinuxWorld this summer, so watch ZDNet for more.