SCO Expands Linux Licensing To EuropeSCO Expands Linux Licensing To Europe

The SCO Group Inc., which claims some of its proprietary code is in Linux, said Thursday it has expanded its licensing efforts to users of the open source operating system in the United Kingdom and Europe.

The Lindon, Utah-based, company is offering its SCO Intellectual Property License for an "introductory" price of $699 per server processor and $199 per desktop processor. The company, which plans to extend its license offering in more countries Feb. 1, also sells licenses for embedded device manufacturers.

Whether SCO will be more successful in selling Linux licenses overseas than in the U.S. remains to be seen. To date, few companies in comparison to the number of Linux users in the U.S. have opted to buy a SCO license.

The company is in the midst of a legal maelstrom that started with its filing last year of a $3 billion lawsuit suit against IBM. SCO claims Big Blue violated its Unix contract by moving SCO's Unix technology to Linux, and thus making the copyrighted code available to anyone for free.

In addition, SCO has notified hundreds of companies that their use of Linux makes them potential targets for litigation.

Red Hat Inc., the largest independent Linux distributor, has filed a formal complaint against SCO, claiming the company's actions to collect royalties from users of the open source operating system are "unfair and deceptive."