Nothing to fear from Aussie open source
Nothing to fear from Aussie open source
Australia's Open Source industry body has released a position paper to instil confidence in Australian companies interested in exploiting open source opportunities and to calm fears created by the SCO vs IBM case.
In 2003, Caldera Systems Inc, trading as the SCO Group, filed a suit against IBM, claiming that IBM engaged in unfair competition with SCO by misusing and misappropriating SCO's proprietary software and incorporating the same software into open source software (specifically Linux).
SCO also accused IBM of encouraging and helping others to commit the same acts. But the OSIA has stated that SCO launched its lawsuit as a cynical share-price pump and dump exercise.
OSIA spokesperson Con Zymaris said. "The SCO suit has attracted considerable interest and media attention, particularly from open source software advocates, and those considering the adoption of open source software. Open Source Industry Australia has produced this position paper to help distil the current status of what is, to casual observer, a complex case, often made murkier by SCO constantly changing its claims and allegations."
There are many key points which the OSIA would like Australian's to understand to give them confidence in the open source sector.
It believes that unless proven, there is no infringing code in Linux; the SCO's claims that companies such as Computer Associates have bought its Linux Intellectual Property (IP) Licences are false; Linux does not infringe on any SCO IP with respect to Application Programming Interfaces and Linux does not infringe on any SCO IP with respect to Application Binary Interfaces.
In addition, the OSIA has said that SCO's case will fail because it cannot prove it owns any Unix copyrights nor can it prove that any infringing Unix code is in Linux, and Microsoft is the only reason that SCO is still in business.
Overall, the OSIA believes that Australian businesses and individuals should continue to use Linux and that SCO's threats are not barriers to the ongoing adoption of operating systems.
Click here to read the full position paper.
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