The SCO Group has pulled back on its plans for a French Linux invasion.

Earlier this week, an alert Reg reader noticed that SCO was listed as an exhibitor at the Linux Solutions conference to be held in Paris from February 3 to 5. On Monday, we checked under the letter T on the exhibitor list, and sure enough The SCO Group appeared. By Tuesday morning, however, any reference to SCO had disappeared. So we went to the source to find out what had happened.

Conference officials have a different interpretation of the affair.

"(A) few month ago, SCO planned to exhibit at SL 2004," said Sacha Dunas, who is coordinating exhibitor planning for the conference. "Their strategy about (the) exhibition (has) changed. They decided to cancel their participation as exhibitor and as speaker."

There seems to be a bit of confusion.

It's too bad that SCO won't be showing up. Platinum sponsor IBM would surely have welcomed the company with open arms. Mr. Stallman might have had a few words for SCO as well.

As an aside, the reader who sent the original link said the conference floor plan had the SCO booth wedged in between IBM and Red Hat. It's probably best that this did not end up happening. We doubt there would be enough room for all the lawyers. ®