Windows SharePoint Services itself is free. For a link to a download see the
WSS FAQ site (either the one below or www.wssfaq.com). You'll find the
download under MS Articles in the Downloads section [in the
wss.collutions.com site, MS Articles is accessible via the Useful Documents
menu item] Note that the present version there includes WSS SP1.
Although WSS itself is free, you still need to pay the normal charges for
Win 2003 Server and if you are using SQL Server 2K (so that you can get
search) instead of the default WMSDE, you'll need to pay standard charges
for that too. Note that WSS doesn't install on 2003 Web Edition unless you
have a second server running SQL Server.
The WSS newsgroup as before is microsoft.public.sharepoint.windowsservices