SCO license currently for biggest users only (IDG) [LWN.net]

According to IDG, SCO has decided that it will only be selling "Linux licenses" to big companies for now. "SCO may be proceeding cautiously with licensing sales for fear of litigation from an entity like the Free Software Foundation which has intellectual property claims to Linux, said IDC analyst Dan Kusnetzky. 'As soon as they sell the first one, litigation will be started from all quarters,' he predicted. 'I think the people from The SCO Group realized that if they opened that box, they'd never be able to close it again.'"

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SCO license currently for biggest users only (IDG)

Posted Oct 22, 2003 19:52 UTC (Wed) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link] (2 responses)

"I think the chances of collecting from small businesses are very small, because they have very little to lose," he said. "They don't necessarily know whether they have SCO or Linux. The only time they care about their computer is when it crashes."

These are the words of a SCO reseller, who really understands small-business users and how they perceive their computers.

Would you buy a product from this person?

SCO license currently for biggest users only (IDG)

Posted Oct 22, 2003 20:07 UTC (Wed) by smoogen (subscriber, #97) [Link] (1 responses)

Maybe.. because he is honest. Having gone and set up computers for a lot of small shops.. he is correct. The people consider it to be like the family sedan. They only worry about it when the oil light comes on.

SCO license currently for biggest users only (IDG)

Posted Oct 22, 2003 21:56 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

"They don't necessarily know whether they have SCO or Linux"

That guy is being a little dishonest, or did not applyed a real happy phrasing. I belive he wanted to tell that users dont really now if there is SCO IP in Linux or not,...
But being a reseller he himself should now better, and he is showing "stupid incompetence" at least, because selling a licence for something that is plenty known to be "yet"(and forever) free TODAY(22/10/2003), only on base of SCO future guarantee, even in the surreal case of SCO being given right tomorrow, is a fraud...
... or than he is delibaretely being dishonest and should be arrested!

Linux is free again.

Posted Oct 24, 2003 5:40 UTC (Fri) by rickfdd (subscriber, #4519) [Link]

Apparently, as an individual, I do not need a SCO license to run GNU/Linux. Thus, SCO approves my use of their code within GPL software. Thus, the SCO code is licensed, GPL compatibly free. FREE!

To celebrate, I encourage you to download and install Linux. I will even give Linux to the Fortune 1000 companies, so they don't need to pay SCO either.