SCO Announces Licensing Prices for Linux Users

By Bill Claybrook
http://aberdeen.com/ab_company/bios/claybrook.htm

August 6, 2003

In response to Red Hat’s [ http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_abstracts/2002/12/12022968.htm ] lawsuit against SCO, SCO came forward with licensing prices for Linux users who want to avoid legal hassles with SCO over their use of Linux. The prices include $199 for desktop PCs and $699 for servers with single CPUs (this price jumps to $1399 after an intro period). There did not seem to be a license price quoted for multi-CPU systems such as 2-way and 4-way machines. These prices are clearly much higher than the cost of Red Hat Linux. I do not expect any users to buy these licenses from SCO.

There is a rumor that IBM is replying (in court) to the SCO lawsuit [ http://www.aberdeen.com/ab_abstracts/2003/06/06030008.htm ] today (this has not been confirmed by IBM). It is not clear yet that even if this rumor is true whether or not IBM will make any public statements. If this rumor is true and IBM does go public with some of the content in its reply, then I believe that this will squelch any hopes that users will pick up SCO’s offer of the licenses described above, and it will further dash any hope that users will bite on any of SCO’s other license offers.

2:04 ETT

Copyright 2003