An individual has allegedly tried to sell an estimated $20 million worth of unauthorised Novell software on Ebay's auction site.

Novell claimed its investigators discovered that the products, which included different versions of Netware, Groupwise and Bordermanager, were being sold by Peter Bosworth of Massachusetts, during their regular work of monitoring the Internet.

The investigators attested that they acquired the software from the Ebay site after determining that it was not authorised for distribution. Bosworth was then allegedly contacted by Novell, which recovered the remaining products in his possession.

Harrison Colter, Novell's associate general counsel, said: "Most of the Novell products we have seen offered through these auction sites have turned out to be illegitimate in one way or another