Caldera adopts Microsoft-style licensing for Linux

Linux provider Caldera has outraged the open source community by introducing per seat licence fees for its latest software release.

Caldera quietly changed its software licensing policy earlier this week from free downloads to a per workstation fee. This decision has angered open source supporters who say Caldera is on its way to becoming another Microsoft.

George Greve, the president of Free Software Europe, said: "Caldera is certainly not championing the case for free software since it has decided to make money by proprietarising their product. They have made a huge step backwards to being a software company just like Microsoft."

Hartmut Pilch, from Linux think tank Eurolinux, said Caldera is biting the hand that feeds it: "Caldera could be seen as violating the spirit of the community and causing havoc amongst the open source enthusiasts by claiming to be one of them," he said.

Colin Tenwick, the VP of rival Red Hat, said the acquisition of Unix specialist SCO last August may have forced the company to turn to the more traditional licensing model:

"I am not sure how Caldera is able to unravel all the complex SCO licensing rules and still adhere to the open source principles. It's obviously trying to get the best of both worlds."

But Jason Clifford, a consultant and founder of uklinux.net, defended Caldera by saying the company is trying to show long-term sustainability: "Caldera is unlikely to alienate the developers as the decision to charge for their products make good business sense in the long run," he said.

Drew Spencer, CTO of Caldera, said: "The community is accustomed to getting everything free, but we are a business with a responsibility to the shareholders so we have to make sure we are making money. We are also trying to appeal to the commercial developers and aim to make Linux more commercially viable," he said.

The new pricing rules will affect the upgraded version of OpenLinux 3.1 Workstation.