Vendor Spotlight: Icinga

The creation of the Icinga brand, Icinga GmbH, and its system monitoring tool has a complicated history of copyright infringement, domain registrations, and company creations in the USA, France, and Germany. The history of Icinga GmbH is interlaced with that of Nagios Enterprises, LLC and Netways GmbH. So, let’s get on and sort through the chaff.

Nagios vs. Icinga

The system monitoring tool, Icinga, was created by copying an existing system, called Nagios. As a rule, copying other people’s software is not legal. However, this particular system had told everyone that the code could be copied and changed. The only stipulation of the permission was that the code could not be then sold for commercial gain.

The GNU General Public License

If an idea hasn’t been patented or copyrighted, anyone who learns about it can go and register ownership in their name by applying for a patent or copyright. Generally, an invention belongs to the first person who applied for copyright or patent, not the person who came up with the idea.

Designs for physical inventions and processes are covered by patents, and artistic creations are covered by copyright law. Because a computer program is the end product rather than a design for something, it has more in common with a novel than with the specs for a creation. Thus, software developers prevent the unauthorized use of their programs through copyright law.

Taking someone to court for copyright infringement can take years, and software is pirated all the time to exploit this difficulty. The process is a little easier if it is framed as a breach of contract. So, software companies make people agree to a license before they allow that person to get a copy of the program.

GNU was a project to develop an operating system and its main developers wanted to be able to allow anyone to use the system but also wanted to claim ownership of it, mainly to block otters from doing so. If they didn’t issue a legal declaration of ownership in the form of a license, they would end up having to spend a lot of money to stop others from infringing on their copyright. Money that they were not earning because they were giving their software away.  So, one of the project members came up with a license wording, which has since become known as the GNU General Public License (GPL).

Open Source Projects

The GNU GPL is now extensively used by software developers who want to let others use their systems for free but not sell it on. It is particularly widely used by open-source projects. This type of development lets others access the source code and change it if they want. Those changes can then be sent back to the project and assessed for inclusion in the core code.

The fact that the founders of an open-source project have declared that they won’t be making money off the software encourages other programmers to make contributions without charging for their time.

Nagios Comes Under Threat

The creation of Icinga was triggered by the breach of the copyright held by Nagios. Whether the Nagios GPL license had been breached was another matter because this infringement took the form of cybersquatting.

Cybersquatting involves registering a Web domain that sounds like someone else’s product, and a company called Netways GmbH did that by registering a series of Web domains in France that included the Nagios name in them. In order to better defend the Nagios identity, the project’s founder needed money. So, he took the copyright of the system private in order to make it commercially exploitable. This destroyed the agreement he had with all of those programmers who had worked for free on the basis that the software would not be commercialized. Some of those developers create Icinga.

The Nagios vs. Netways dispute was a significant event in the open-source monitoring world, centering around issues of control, branding, and business interests. It arose after the creation of Icinga, a fork of Nagios, and reflects tensions between Nagios Enterprises, led by Ethan Galstad, and Netways, a German IT consulting firm, which was a significant contributor to the Nagios ecosystem before the fork.

Nagios, Netways, and Icinga

There were three companies involved in the creation of the Icinga platform, and there are three versions of the truth. These can be summarized as follows:

The Nagios version

Netways GmbH, a marketing partner of the Nagios project, overstepped the mark by registering Web domain names with the Nagios name in them, taking ownership of those domains. It seemed to Nagios that Netways was commercializing the Nagios name for its own profit, so Nagios took its identities private to defend its brand. Netways stirred up trouble with the independent contributors to the project and encouraged them to create a copy of Nagios and run it as Icinga, essentially stealing the work of Ethan Galstad, who single-handedly wrote the core of Nagios.

The Icinga version

When Ethan Galstad created Nagios Enterprises and moved Nagios project assets into it, he breached the agreement he had with the independent developers who had contributed without payment on the basis that the code would not be commercialized. The GPL license of Nagios entitles anyone to take the code, change it, and distribute it as long as they don’t charge for the new system. Icinga is an open-source project and distributes its software under a GPL license for free, so it does not breach the copyright of Nagios, which relates to the name and the logo. It also does not break the Nagios GPL license.

The Netways version

While Ethan Galstad and other Nagios creators worked for nothing, Netways has always been a for-profit organization. The company has an agreement with Nagios to publicize the monitoring tool and performed that task well. The company never copied any code and never got involved with programming. However, when Icinga was created, Netways was free to sign a marketing agreement with that new entity, while also representing the Nagios brand. Ethan Galstad trumped-up legal problems for Netways out of spite to try to shut down its rival, Icinga.

Here’s an overview of the key events and issues in the case:

Background of Nagios and Netways Collaboration

Initially, Netways was a strong partner in the Nagios community, especially in Europe. Netways provided consulting, support, and training services around Nagios, helping organizations implement the monitoring tool in large-scale infrastructures. This relationship was beneficial for both parties:

• Netways built a successful business by providing services around Nagios.
• Nagios Enterprises, the company run by Ethan Galstad, gained from the growing adoption of its software in Europe, supported by Netways’ outreach and expertise.

The Fork: Creation of Icinga

In 2009, frustrations within the Nagios community, including at Netways, reached a tipping point due to:

• Slow development: Nagios had been slow to adopt new features and address bugs, with development controlled almost entirely by Ethan Galstad.
• Limited community involvement: Contributors and users felt they had limited influence over the project’s roadmap, with Galstad maintaining tight control over key decisions.

These issues led to the decision by members of the community, including Netways staff and other contributors, to fork Nagios and create Icinga. This move angered Galstad and Nagios Enterprises, as Icinga became a direct competitor, offering an alternative vision for open-source monitoring with faster development and a more open governance model.

The Legal Dispute: Nagios vs. Netways

Following the Icinga fork, tensions escalated between Nagios Enterprises and Netways, as Ethan Galstad saw Icinga as a threat to Nagios’s market position, especially in Europe. The conflict culminated in a legal dispute in 2012.

Key Issues in the Case

1. Trademark Infringement and Branding:
   • Nagios Enterprises claimed that Netways was using the Nagios trademark improperly in its marketing and promotional materials, especially after the fork.
   • Netways continued to provide training and consulting services for Nagios users but was also promoting Icinga as a forked alternative. Nagios Enterprises argued that this dual promotion could confuse customers about the relationship between Nagios and Icinga.
2. Misrepresentation:
   • Galstad and Nagios Enterprises accused Netways of misrepresenting their relationship with Nagios, possibly misleading customers into thinking that Netways had official backing from Nagios for their services after the creation of Icinga.
   • The lawsuit also centered on whether Netways had violated agreements or acted in bad faith by leveraging its previous partnership with Nagios to promote Icinga.
3. Competitive Behavior:
   • The lawsuit reflected broader concerns about competition between Nagios and Icinga. By creating a fork and pushing it through the same network of partners and clients that previously supported Nagios, Icinga’s creators (including members of the Netways team) had positioned themselves as direct competitors to Nagios Enterprises.
4. Community vs. Commercial Interests:
   • The case highlighted the conflict between open-source community interests, which Icinga advocated for, and commercial control, which Galstad sought to maintain over Nagios. This ideological clash was a significant part of the broader dispute, as Galstad believed the creation of Icinga undermined his business and the integrity of the Nagios project.

Outcome and Aftermath

The lawsuit was settled out of court in 2012. The details of the settlement were not made public, but the resolution allowed both Nagios and Netways to continue their respective operations:

• Netways continued to offer consulting and support services for both Nagios and Icinga, although they gradually became more closely associated with Icinga as it grew in popularity.
• Nagios Enterprises retained control over the Nagios trademark, and likely as part of the settlement, Netways may have adjusted how they marketed their services around Nagios to avoid further conflict.

While the lawsuit did not result in a public trial, it highlighted deep divisions in the open-source monitoring community. Nagios Enterprises maintained control over Nagios’s development and brand, while Icinga continued to grow as a community-driven fork with backing from Netways and other contributors.

The Nagios vs. Netways case revolved around the control of the Nagios brand and business after the Icinga fork. While the legal dispute was resolved quietly, it reflected deeper tensions between open-source ideology and commercial interests. Netways played a key role in the formation of Icinga, and the lawsuit with Nagios Enterprises was part of a broader conflict over the future of open-source monitoring tools. Ultimately, both projects – Nagios and Icinga – survived and followed distinct paths, with Icinga embracing a more open, community-driven approach.

Broader Implications

The Nagios vs. Netways case had broader implications for the open-source software ecosystem:

1. Forking in Open-Source Communities: The dispute underscored the tensions that can arise when open-source projects are forked, especially when the original project is closely tied to a commercial enterprise.
2. Commercialization of Open Source: Nagios’s desire to maintain commercial control over its open-source product clashed with the more collaborative and open model embraced by Icinga, highlighting challenges in balancing business interests with community involvement in open-source software.
3. Branding and Trademark Issues: The case illustrated the importance of trademarks and branding in open-source projects, where forks can create confusion about which projects are officially sanctioned or related.

Icinga GmbH

As Icinga matured, it became apparent that the project needed a more formal structure to support its development and community. This led to the formation of Icinga GmbH, the company behind the open-source project. While the Icinga software remains open-source and free, Icinga GmbH offers enterprise-level support, consulting, and services related to the implementation and scaling of Icinga for large businesses.

Icinga GmbH was created in 2018 to provide commercial support and guidance for Icinga, which had already gained significant popularity after its fork from Nagios. The company was established in Germany, and its headquarters is located in Nuremberg, a city known for its active open-source community.

Despite the establishment of a commercial entity, Icinga GmbH maintains the open-source nature of the Icinga project. The software remains free for anyone to download, use, and contribute to, with an active community around it. The company fosters open collaboration and regularly contributes updates, bug fixes, and new features to the Icinga ecosystem.

Icinga GmbH offers enterprise-grade services, including:

• Consulting: Helping organizations design and implement monitoring solutions using Icinga to meet their specific needs.
• Support: Providing technical support for enterprises that need help with installation, configuration, troubleshooting, and maintenance of Icinga systems.
• Training: Offering professional training for administrators, developers, and IT teams to help them get the most out of Icinga’s features.
• Managed Services: Icinga GmbH also offers hosted and managed Icinga environments for companies that prefer outsourcing their monitoring needs.

The company’s close collaboration with Netways was instrumental in the project’s success. Netways provided both technical expertise and business support, helping Icinga find its footing in the enterprise IT world. All the project staff of Icinga and workers of Icinga GmbH are also employees of Netways. Both companies operate out of the same offices in Nuremberg, Germany.

Icinga GmbH Products and Services

Apart from the training and consultancy services of Icinga GmbH, which are operated by the Netways consultancy, these are the products that are currently available under the Icinga brand:

• Icinga 2: A modern monitoring tool that was developed as a complete rewrite of the original Icinga. Icinga 2 is known for its scalability, flexibility, and ease of use, and it is the main software product maintained by Icinga GmbH.
• Icinga Web 2: An intuitive and customizable web interface for managing and viewing monitoring data in Icinga 2.
• Icinga Module for vSphere: A module designed to integrate with VMware environments, allowing users to monitor virtual machines, hosts, and data stores.
• Icinga Director: A configuration tool that allows users to define and manage hosts, services, and other monitoring objects in a more automated and streamlined way.
• Icinga for Windows: A monitoring framework for Windows environments, allowing users to collect and visualize Windows-related performance and event data.

Key People

• Michael Lübben played a critical role in the early development of Icinga. As one of the co-founders of the Icinga project, he was involved in shaping the technical direction of Icinga 1 and Icinga 2, contributing to its vision of being a more open, community-driven alternative to Nagios. His contributions helped set Icinga apart from Nagios, both in terms of technical improvements and in fostering a more inclusive developer community.
• Bernd Erk was a founder of Icinga in 2009 and is the Managing Director of Icinga GmbH. At the time that Icinga was created, Erk had been Head of operations for Netways since 2007 and later became the CEO of Netways in 2011. Today is the chief executive of both Netways and Icinga. The close involvement and continued control of Icinga weakened the argument of Netways that it was simply a services company that had agreements with both Nagios and Icinga. The two key executives of Netways were instrumental in the creation of the Icinga project.
• Julian Hein has been the Chairman of Netways Group since 1995. He guided Netways through its marketing and consultancy agreement with Nagios, promoting the tool and setting up training courses for businesses interested in using it. He is one of the founders of the Icinga project and has been involved with it since 2009.

Icinga 2 is a highly scalable, flexible, and performant open-source monitoring system designed for modern IT infrastructures. It was developed as a complete rewrite of the original Icinga, which itself was a fork of Nagios.

Key Features:

• Flexible Configuration: The Icinga 2 configuration is highly flexible, with support for rule-based configuration using its DSL (domain-specific language).
• Modular Design: A modular architecture, making it easy to extend and integrate with other tools.
• Extensive Monitoring Capabilities: Monitors servers, applications, databases, network devices, services, and cloud environments.
• REST API: This allows users to query and manipulate monitoring data programmatically, integrating Icinga functions into new software.
• Notifications and Alerts: Sends notifications and alerts via email, SMS, chat systems (e.g., Slack), or custom scripts.

Icinga 2 is a core component of the Icinga monitoring ecosystem and offers extensive features for monitoring systems, services, networks, and applications. It was released in 2014 by the Icinga GmbH team, addressing many limitations of its predecessor. Icinga 2 was designed to handle large-scale environments, with the ability to monitor thousands of hosts and services. It supports distributed and high-availability (HA) setups, enabling users to build resilient, fault-tolerant monitoring systems across multiple locations.

Other Notable Products

1. Icinga Web 2

Icinga Web 2 is a web-based interface designed for managing and visualizing the monitoring data from Icinga 2. It provides users with a modular dashboard where they can view host and service statuses, receive real-time alerts, and generate reports. The interface is highly customizable, allowing for personalized views and role-based access control. It supports a variety of plugins and modules, including third-party integrations for enhanced functionality, such as performance graphing and configuration management. Icinga Web 2 enhances user experience by offering an intuitive, responsive design while ensuring deep visibility into infrastructure health.

2. Icinga Director

Icinga Director is a web-based configuration management tool for Icinga 2, designed to simplify the process of managing monitoring configurations. It provides a user-friendly interface for creating, modifying, and deploying monitoring objects, such as hosts, services, and dependencies, without the need to manually edit configuration files. With Icinga Director, users can leverage templates, custom variables, and dynamic configurations, allowing for greater flexibility and consistency. It supports data import from various sources and integrates with the Icinga Web 2 interface for seamless management. This tool enhances efficiency, reduces configuration errors, and streamlines the monitoring setup process.

Major Competitors

Here are the major competitors to Icinga GmbH, each offering monitoring solutions for IT infrastructure:

1. Nagios One of the oldest and most well-known open-source monitoring tools, providing comprehensive monitoring of systems, networks, and applications. It offers extensive plugin support, customizable alerting, and a dedicated community. While it has a steep learning curve, its powerful features make it suitable for both small and large environments, though development has slowed in recent years.
2. Zabbix A robust open-source monitoring solution that provides real-time monitoring for networks, servers, applications, and cloud resources. It features an intuitive web interface, customizable dashboards, and advanced data visualization options. Zabbix supports agentless monitoring and offers high scalability, making it suitable for enterprises. It also includes alerting, reporting, and API integration for automation.
3. Prometheus A popular open-source monitoring and alerting toolkit designed for dynamic cloud-native environments. It uses a time-series database to collect metrics, allowing for powerful querying and visualization through integration with tools like Grafana. Prometheus is ideal for microservices architectures, offering features such as service discovery, multidimensional data models, and alerting based on metrics.
4. Grafana Primarily a visualization tool but is widely used alongside various data sources, including Prometheus, InfluxDB, and others, for monitoring purposes. It provides customizable dashboards and powerful querying capabilities, enabling users to create real-time visualizations of metrics. While not a traditional monitoring solution, Grafana enhances monitoring setups by delivering detailed insights into infrastructure health.
5. Sensu A modern, open-source monitoring solution designed for cloud-native and hybrid environments. It provides comprehensive observability through event-driven monitoring, allowing users to monitor systems, services, and applications. Sensu supports a variety of integrations and offers real-time alerting and automation features. Its flexibility and scalability make it suitable for dynamic infrastructure environments.
6. Checkmk An open-source monitoring solution that provides a powerful and user-friendly interface for monitoring infrastructure and applications. It combines both agent-based and agentless monitoring methods, allowing for versatility in deployment. Checkmk features a rich ecosystem of plugins, customizable dashboards, and extensive reporting capabilities. Its focus on performance and ease of use makes it popular among IT teams.

Spotlight Wrap-Up

Nagios loyalists accused Icinga of being a sabotage attempt by Netways GmbH. An examination of the founders and the entire staff of Icinga shows that there is some truth to that claim. Icinga has continued the open-source path of the original Nagios Core while providing a better frontend than that of Nagios. The commercial strategy of Icinga is similar to that of Zabbix: keep the software free to use while generating income from support and training services. While typically, the developers on an open-source project don’t get paid, the programmers working on Icinga do get paid … by Netways.