O'Shaughnessy told ZDNet Australia that he was still to hear back from U.S. spokesperson Blake Stowell, who told ZDNet Australia parent company CNET News.com earlier this week the company planned to start sending out invoices to commercial Linux users "probably sometime this month" as part of its strategy to impose Unix license fees for Linux use.
The program will initially target commercial Linux users who have discussed their work publicly. The company said last month it wanted corporations to purchase Unix licenses to legitimise their use of Linux, based on a charge of US$699 for a single-processor Linux server. SCO claims Linux contains intellectual property from Unix, an operating system to which it holds copyrights and licenses to companies such as Hewlett Packard and Sun Microsystems.
However, O'Shaughnessy suggested the report of an invoicing program "did not ring true," saying it contradicted strategy discussions he had had with his counterparts in the U.S. just two weeks ago. The company had, he said, no plans to distribute invoices to commercial -- or non-commercial -- Linux users in Australia.
The SCO Group was, he said, still talking to commercial Linux users in the U.S. over the company's view that "there is Unix [intellectual property] in Linux that shouldn't be there".
However, the company expects to kick off its licensing program in Australia within the next two to three months. SCO chief executive, Darl McBride, has described the program as "a solution that...gets you square with the use of Linux, without having to go to the courtroom".
SCO cant keep their story straight. Is it any wonder why the Linux community is "dismissive" of their claims?