The SCO tax

SCO did not content itself with threatening the "long-term survivability of Linux" after Red Hat filed suit. The following day, the company announced its latest product: an "intellectual property license for Linux" (license text here). Why, one might ask? From the SCO License FAQ:

It is encouraging that SCO is such a concerned, customer-oriented company. In fact, the company is even kind enough to offer a special "promotional" pricing arrangement for those who buy their licenses before October. Prices vary; a "desktop" license is $199, for a single-CPU server it's $699; for eight processors it goes up to $4999. Embedded devices get a special $32 price - but that's still enough to hurt when added to your wireless access point or video recorder.

After the promotional period ends, prices will double.

Of course, certain questions come to mind. Questions like "why the hell should I pay off a company to use my nicely GPL-licensed software when that company refuses to show me any proof that it has any claim on said software?" Strangely enough, this question does not appear in the SCO licensing FAQ.

For what it's worth, even the Gartner Group has been quoted as recommending that potential licensees not bother until the Red Hat suit plays out.

SCO, perhaps, thinks it is sitting on some sort of gold mine. All it has to do is make a tax on every Linux installation stick, and enough gold will flow to Utah to fill Canyonlands. There's only one little problem: if it were ever to become clear that Linux users actually had to pay this tax, all distribution of Linux would have to immediately stop. Distribution of a non-free Linux kernel would be a clear GPL violation, and there is little doubt that some holders of Linux copyrights would sue, if necessary, to prevent their code from being distributed as part of a proprietary product. Even SCO acknowledges this fact in its FAQ:

So, if SCO somehow makes its license stick, it kills the whole game. Linux distribution would cease, and companies, seeing no future in Linux, would switch to something else rather than pay exorbitant fees for a dead-end system. Given that scenario, it is hard to come up with reasons why SCO would attempt this licensing program in the first place. With the application of sufficient imagination, however, a few possibilities can be found:

• The purpose of the licensing program may just be to attract attention and, with luck, a bit of short-term cash. Perhaps it is not expected to last very long.

• Perhaps SCO thinks that the momentum and installed base of Linux are big enough that a way around the GPL problems would have to be found.

• Or, perhaps, the death of Linux is the real goal.

In the short term, however, it's a fairly safe prediction that this licensing program will not go very far. Most users are far from convinced by SCO's claims, to say the least. And SCO has very limited resources to direct toward new legal battles; the company is, after all, fighting two high-profile cases already. Of course, if you are concerned about the issue, you should get your advice from a lawyer, not from web publications like LWN.

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