3 ms·

I appreciate your critique, but stand by my original statement. Let me address the items you bring up point by point. Please excuse my brevity. 1. Xenix was ba

by whyenot 10y ago

I appreciate your critique, but stand by my original statement. Let me address the items you bring up point by point. Please excuse my brevity. 1. Xenix was based on Bell Labs V7 and then AT&T SVR2, SCO Unix was based on SVR4. Xenix and SCO Unix shared code in addition to that derived from their common ancestry. Claiming that they were "very different" is obviously a matter of opinion. In my opinion, they were pretty similar. 2. SCO split into two pieces: one was sold to Caldera, the other became Tarantella. As far as your hypotheses about why SCO failed, I'm not seeing why it is relevant to the discussion. 3. Microsoft indirectly backed SCO Group through BayStar capital. Please verify this for yourself with a quick web search so you will be protected from propagating your misinformation in the future. 4. Not relevant. 5. Both XENIX and SCO Unix were derived from the same original codebase. SCO Unix would not exist if it were not for XENIX. 6. Actually, I think the AutoZone and DaimlerChrysler lawsuits are fairly unimportant within the context of the original discussion. To me, the interesting point is that MS had the foresight in 1979 to see that Unix would become a big thing and as a result created Xenix. Decades later, when Unix (Linux) was indeed a big thing, by proxy, it attempted to use XENIX to fight back at Unix (Linux) proponents.

scholia 10y ago
> MS had the foresight in 1979 to see that Unix would become a big thing 1978, I think. The idea that Unix would take over from CP/M seemed pretty common at the time. The main problems were the high Unix prices and the cost of the hardware required. However, Microsoft got lucky with DOS on the IBM PC, and the PC market took off, and IBM also licensed Xenix.... Unfortunately, IBM decided that it needed to own the whole stack. This precluded using Unix/Xenix/etc as the PC client, which was a problem because Microsoft was now dependent on IBM. (Ballmer called it "riding the bear", followed by BOGU, for Bend Over, Grease Up.) IBM finally published its strategy in 1987 as Systems Application Architecture (SAA), which mandated the use of the extended edition of OS/2 (not available from Microsoft) as the PC client. SAA also included IBM's PS/2 micros with MCA expansion buses, intended to break the link with the DOS-based PC industry. Faced with possible exclusion from the IBM-controlled corporate market (1), the best deal Microsoft could get in 1985 was to co-develop OS/2, so Xenix -- despite having been by far the most popular Unix of its day -- became surplus to requirements. Another factor was the arrival of AT&T's System V in 1983. This showed AT&T was serious about selling Unix, and maybe Microsoft didn't think it could compete. What it did was contribute small parts of Xenix to SVR4 (1988). SVR4 was where AT&T & Sun decided to redefine and take over the IT industry, which led to the great Unix Wars and the creation of OSF etc. All of which infighting left the door open for Windows, DR-GEM, DesQview and many others.... Fun days.... (1) SAA flopped and IBM had to go back to making PC compatibles, so it turned out that IBM didn't control the corporate market as much as it thought.
rogerbinns 10y ago
Regarding #1 that is mashing together two separate products into 1. (I worked for SCO.) The history is that Microsoft were producing Xenix - a port from AT&T. Eventually they decided to stop doing that work themselves as DOS, OS/2, Lan Manager and similar were of interest. (Note though that they ran their email infrastructure on Xenix - it was part of their operational business.) Xenix was handed over to a father and son company in Santa Cruz. They called the company Santa Cruz Operation so that in phone calls to Microsoft, the Microsoft folks would think SCO was a branch office not a different company. Xenix was updated, ported etc, eventually being called SCO OpenServer. That "SCO Unix" did not have SVR4 in it. Heck it could barely do multi-processor and similar. In 1995 Novell (owners of the AT&T Unix at that point) then "handed" SVR4 over to SCO, with the result being called SCO UnixWare. That was the SVR4 derivative. SCO did this to get into the enterprise space, and couldn't do the engineering to bring the Xenix derivative there. Later in the 90s there was a game of musical chairs as Intel announced the Itanium, and all the Risc chip and Unix vendors formed consortiums. SCO was part of one with IBM named Project Monterey. It was supposed to have some Linux compatibility, but as time progressed IBM cared more about Linux (and AIX) while SCO couldn't keep up with the engineering commitments. In 2000 all the Unix stuff (OpenServer and UnixWare) went to Caldera. Well it would have but the deal was so complicated (it was pseudo licensing with money and royalties going back and forth). Heck Caldera only really wanted OpenServer. The SEC went "huh" a while later, so a new deal happened in 2001. There was also a tech downturn, so a simpler deal was done. All that was left of SCO was Tarantella hence the company rename. Caldera renamed themselves to The SCO Group a while later. The grounds for suing IBM were around Project Monterey, although as far as I know neither side did all they should have. And then since IBM had gone in on Linux, SCO Group decided to sue claiming IBM had put Unix code into Linux. Novell got involved because the details of "handing" over mattered.
- kragen 10y ago
  Thank you for clarifying! Were you around when stuff moved over to Caldera? Were there SCO people who moved to Utah, or who became Caldera employees in California? My condolences on having had such a shitty thing happen to such a beautiful company. I don't ever remember SCO Unix being a particularly great Unix, but it was pretty solid, and the company was awesome; it's a place I would have been proud to work if I'd had a chance.
kragen 10y ago
Thank you for your point of view! I'd forgotten about the BayStar thing, but its existence seems to be debatable; someone at BayStar said they got a promise from someone at Microsoft to guarantee their SCO investment, but didn't actually fulfill the terms of the guarantee, and Microsoft denies any such guarantee ever existed. So it ends up being a he-said-he-said thing.

by whyenot 10y ago

scholia 10y ago

> MS had the foresight in 1979 to see that Unix would become a big thing 1978, I think. The idea that Unix would take over from CP/M seemed pretty common at the time. The main problems were the high Unix prices and the cost of the hardware required. However, Microsoft got lucky with DOS on the IBM PC, and the PC market took off, and IBM also licensed Xenix.... Unfortunately, IBM decided that it needed to own the whole stack. This precluded using Unix/Xenix/etc as the PC client, which was a problem because Microsoft was now dependent on IBM. (Ballmer called it "riding the bear", followed by BOGU, for Bend Over, Grease Up.) IBM finally published its strategy in 1987 as Systems Application Architecture (SAA), which mandated the use of the extended edition of OS/2 (not available from Microsoft) as the PC client. SAA also included IBM's PS/2 micros with MCA expansion buses, intended to break the link with the DOS-based PC industry. Faced with possible exclusion from the IBM-controlled corporate market (1), the best deal Microsoft could get in 1985 was to co-develop OS/2, so Xenix -- despite having been by far the most popular Unix of its day -- became surplus to requirements. Another factor was the arrival of AT&T's System V in 1983. This showed AT&T was serious about selling Unix, and maybe Microsoft didn't think it could compete. What it did was contribute small parts of Xenix to SVR4 (1988). SVR4 was where AT&T & Sun decided to redefine and take over the IT industry, which led to the great Unix Wars and the creation of OSF etc. All of which infighting left the door open for Windows, DR-GEM, DesQview and many others.... Fun days.... (1) SAA flopped and IBM had to go back to making PC compatibles, so it turned out that IBM didn't control the corporate market as much as it thought.

rogerbinns 10y ago

Regarding #1 that is mashing together two separate products into 1. (I worked for SCO.) The history is that Microsoft were producing Xenix - a port from AT&T. Eventually they decided to stop doing that work themselves as DOS, OS/2, Lan Manager and similar were of interest. (Note though that they ran their email infrastructure on Xenix - it was part of their operational business.) Xenix was handed over to a father and son company in Santa Cruz. They called the company Santa Cruz Operation so that in phone calls to Microsoft, the Microsoft folks would think SCO was a branch office not a different company. Xenix was updated, ported etc, eventually being called SCO OpenServer. That "SCO Unix" did not have SVR4 in it. Heck it could barely do multi-processor and similar. In 1995 Novell (owners of the AT&T Unix at that point) then "handed" SVR4 over to SCO, with the result being called SCO UnixWare. That was the SVR4 derivative. SCO did this to get into the enterprise space, and couldn't do the engineering to bring the Xenix derivative there. Later in the 90s there was a game of musical chairs as Intel announced the Itanium, and all the Risc chip and Unix vendors formed consortiums. SCO was part of one with IBM named Project Monterey. It was supposed to have some Linux compatibility, but as time progressed IBM cared more about Linux (and AIX) while SCO couldn't keep up with the engineering commitments. In 2000 all the Unix stuff (OpenServer and UnixWare) went to Caldera. Well it would have but the deal was so complicated (it was pseudo licensing with money and royalties going back and forth). Heck Caldera only really wanted OpenServer. The SEC went "huh" a while later, so a new deal happened in 2001. There was also a tech downturn, so a simpler deal was done. All that was left of SCO was Tarantella hence the company rename. Caldera renamed themselves to The SCO Group a while later. The grounds for suing IBM were around Project Monterey, although as far as I know neither side did all they should have. And then since IBM had gone in on Linux, SCO Group decided to sue claiming IBM had put Unix code into Linux. Novell got involved because the details of "handing" over mattered.

kragen 10y ago
Thank you for clarifying! Were you around when stuff moved over to Caldera? Were there SCO people who moved to Utah, or who became Caldera employees in California? My condolences on having had such a shitty thing happen to such a beautiful company. I don't ever remember SCO Unix being a particularly great Unix, but it was pretty solid, and the company was awesome; it's a place I would have been proud to work if I'd had a chance.

kragen 10y ago

Thank you for your point of view! I'd forgotten about the BayStar thing, but its existence seems to be debatable; someone at BayStar said they got a promise from someone at Microsoft to guarantee their SCO investment, but didn't actually fulfill the terms of the guarantee, and Microsoft denies any such guarantee ever existed. So it ends up being a he-said-he-said thing.