[Samba] how legal is samba

Anthony Hess tonyh at engr.arizona.edu
Thu Nov 20 23:20:28 GMT 2003


Thats right - He might be thinking of the client access licenses on the
Windows servers.  Samba needs no such licensing, nor is any required.  As
long as you have licenses for your windows clients, then you are
completely legal.

Remember, a LOT of people are using Samba around the world.  Apple even
builds a major component of their server OS around it.  There are no legal
issues to speak of in using a Samba server and Windows client.  No CALs
necessary!

Even lawsuit happy SCO *grr* ships Samba with their product *double grr* :)

Tony

Ed Holden said:
> Jason,
>
> People use this Samba PDC setup all the time.  As far as I know when you
>  have a Windows PDC you need licenses for the server and for each of the
>  clients.  This is in addition to the client licenses you own for each
> machine.  So if you buy a machine with Windows 2000 Professional you
> have a valid license for it.  If you want to connect it to your Windows
> PDC you need a client license on the server as well.  So in your case
> you'd just have client licenses for each machine, but you wouldn't need
> them on the server.
>
> Can anyone else running an NT/2000/2003 shop confirm this licensing
> issue?  As far as I know there is no issue, and in theory you're more
> safe from the BSA with Linux/Samba than with all-Windows, since you
> can't make any licensing errors.
>
> -Ed

Anthony Hess
CoEM Computer Services





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