South African organisations are pooh-poohing a letter sent by the Unix licence-holder the SCO Group, which claims aspects of the Linux operating system are direct copies of Unix System 5.
Thomas Black, Shuttleworth Foundation open source program manager, says the SCO letter is well known within the industry, but that it is not being taken seriously by local organisations as it is considered to be more hype than substance.
"The consensus is that this is an image-building exercise by a failing organisation, rather than a serious threat," Black says.
The mandate of the Shuttleworth Foundation, founded by Internet millionaire Mark Shuttleworth, is to promote the use of open source software, particularly in the education sector.
Black`s views are echoed by a commentary from media and intellectual property law firm Buys Inc, which says: "Complaints can be amended, of course, and litigation is notoriously unpredictable, but for now the SCO letter looks like a campaign made more for the media than the courtroom."
Buys Inc says SCO is comparing its actions with those taken by the music recording industry to protect intellectual property rights. "But SCO`s complaint asserts claims for trade secret misappropriation, unfair competition and breach of contract - not copyright or patent infringement."
SCO`s letter, dated 13 May, says it holds the rights to the Unix software that was originally developed by US telecommunications company AT&T and that the vast majority of the software used in enterprise applications is a derivative of it.
"In recent years, a Unix-like operating system has emerged and has been distributed in the enterprise marketplace by various software vendors. This system is called Linux. We believe that Linux is, in material part, an unauthorised derivative of Unix," the letter says.
SCO`s major criticism of Linux is that it was developed outside of normal commercial processes and that much of it was built from contributions by unknown developers, each contributing a small section of the code.
"The Linux process does not prevent inclusion of code that has been stolen outright, or developed by improper use of proprietary methods and concepts," the SCO letter says.
The letter goes on to refer to the court case SCO has instituted against IBM as an indication that the company will enforce its intellectual property rights with regard to Unix.
It is unclear as to how many SA organisations are using Linux, but BMI-TechKnowledge analyst Roy Bloom says that its use is growing slowly.
"There are more and more companies evaluating open source software, but the change is slow as people have to make a business case to do so. Gone are the days of changing for the sake of change," he says.
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