Note to Self:

We at work wanted to clearify that we don’t in fact need client access license for our 700 users if we are running 3rd party software on a Windows box.  The answer is shocking.

To start with, lets look at the license agreement.
Client Access Licensing Requirements

• Every user or device that accesses or uses the Windows Server 2008 server software requires the purchase of a Windows Server 2008 Client Access License (Windows Server CAL) except under the following circumstances:
• If access to the instances of server software is only through the Internet without being authenticated or otherwise individually identified by the server software or through any other means
• If access is to Windows Web Server 2008
• If external users are accessing the instances of server software and you have acquired a Windows Server 2008 External Connector license for each server being accessed
• For up to two devices or users to access your instances of the server software only to administer those instances

My question was, “What constitutes server software?”  The answer I got is if you are connecting to the server, you are using Windows sockets.

A phone call to Microsoft confirmed this.

Common practice today is that if you run a service like Lotus Notes or Apache on a Windows machine, you pay for the Server OS and Lotus Notes client access licenses.  With this clarification from Microsoft, you also pay for Windows CALs.

This seems insane to me that Microsoft would take this posistion.  It makes Red Hat and Suse Linux support almost free in comparison.  Calls to the software business allience now will practically force companys to shell out hundreds of thousands to Microsoft, or convert to Linux.