As many pundits have speculated - including Open for Business's Timothy R. Butler - UnitedLinux will be offered under a per-server licensing scheme. The news, reported by ITWorld, seems to be the opening salvo between the Free Software community and the growing group of “Proprietary Linux” offerings.
While the battle worn SCO Group (nee Caldera) has been using per-unit licensing for several years, this may mark the first widespread case of the practice for a Linux distribution. OfB's analysis suggests that most companies should consider using other options, such as RedHat, Mandrake, or Debian GNU/Linux flavors, instead.
“The first release of a version of the open source Linux operating system, developed by a quartet of companies known as UnitedLinux, will be globally available in November at a price of less than US$1,000 per server including maintenance, support and upgrades.”