Dear Bob ... I have a question that I'm sure other IT folks are encountering. What can I tell non-technical managers to convince them that a move to Linux is not doomed in license fee hell with SCO's claims and lawsuits. We were ready to roll out a couple of Linux-based file servers on our network to provide more reliability and faster access time, but now all our managers hear are the scare stories that if we Dear Bob …I have a question that I’m sure other IT folks are encountering.What can I tell non-technical managers to convince them that a move to Linux is not doomed in license fee hell with SCO’s claims and lawsuits. We were ready to roll out a couple of Linux-based file servers on our network to provide more reliability and faster access time, but now all our managers hear are the scare stories that if we use Linux we’ll have to pay SCO $700 per processor. What do you and the InfoWorld staff feel will be the end result of all this?– Considering Linux But … Dear But …I imagine if you polled the InfoWorld staff you’d get as many answers as you had responses. Here’s mine:Let’s list the relevant factors: * SCO, with access to the best lawyers a pittance can buy, against IBM, which probably employs more lawyers than SCO has employees.* A highly dubious claim, subject to plenty of counterclaims (imagine if SCO had to prove its ownership of every line of code in its own product line).* The U.S. Court system, working through a highly complex case, with an army of lawyers descending on it fielding as ingenious an array of delaying tactics as an army of lawyers can muster. Then, add the appeals process. Then, figure IBM could easily buy SCO for less than the cost of the settlement and kill the whole problem dead if it chose to. * $700 per processor, which isn’t $7,000 per processor. It isn’t really all that much more than you’d be paying in Windows XP Server licenses if you did that instead, and might even be less depending on whether your company has managed to negotiate a volume discount with Microsoft, and how many processors you have per server. Factor in the time value of money and it gets even better.I’d assess this in the context of a risk analysis. Your cost per processor is something like $50 if you buy a commercial Linux distribution if SCO loses. Add $700 if it wins.I’ll be generous and give SCO a 20% chance of winning. That adds a risk-adjusted penalty of $140. Figure you’d pay the penalty five years from now, so subtract about 5% per year (conservatively) due to the time value of money. That cuts the penalty to $110, so you’re talking about a risk-adjusted cost per processor of $160. Still pretty cheap. If the non-technical managers are really worried, change course and tell them you’ll go with BSD Unix instead of Linux.Legal disclaimer: As with all of the advice I give, my liability is limited to what you paid for it!– Bob ——– Technology Industry