:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 8.08.2003 ::

:: RE the Penguin ::

From CRN:
SCO Battle Rooted In Unix History
By Matthew Fordahl, AP

The SCO Group's attempts to squeeze a revenue stream out of Linux is rooted in the long and tangled history of computer operating systems.

Unix is among the oldest and most reliable operating systems. Developed in the late 1960s and early '70s at AT&T's Bell Laboratories, Unix was never seen as a cash cow for Ma Bell.

In fact, AT&T liberally licensed it to several companies and shared it with universities for educational purposes. Companies created their own flavors of AT&T's Unix, called System V, and rebranded them with names like IBM's AIX, Hewlett-Packard's UX and Sun Microsystems' Solaris.

AT&T granted IBM a Unix license in 1985. Eight years later, Novell acquired AT&T's Unix property. In 1995, Novell sold the rights to the Santa Cruz Operation.

In 1996, IBM obtained more rights in an agreement - now hotly contested - that included phrases like "irrevocable," "fully paid up" and "perpetual."

Caldera, a mostly unsuccessful Linux distributor that would become today's SCO Group, bought the Santa Cruz Operation's Unix business in 2001. Caldera changed its name to the SCO Group last year and set up a business to protect its newly purchased intellectual property.

In 1991, Finnish college student Linus Torvalds created the basics of an operating system that worked and felt like Unix. He came up with the kernel, or core, and made it available to anyone who wanted it, on the condition that it remain open and free.

It was called Linux.

:: 3:20:00 PM [+] ::
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