4 ms·

As soon as I saw that kernel boot screen in the article it was like seeing an old friend. I look back on my years at SCO(C) very fondly. Seeing what happened wh

by grahamm 10y ago

As soon as I saw that kernel boot screen in the article it was like seeing an old friend. I look back on my years at SCO(C) very fondly. Seeing what happened when Caldera (SCOX) got involved deeply saddens me. I always wonder what would have happened if the SCO OS development had turned from SVR UNIX to Linux how different things may have been.

cstross 10y ago
I seem to recall there was a Linux binary loader for OpenServer, along with the Skunkworks project ...? Yeah. Management dropped the ball big-time in 1994. SCO could have been Red Hat really easily if they'd had even a tiny amount of vision. Instead they missed the bus, went into terminal decline, and ended up split between Borland (the good bits) and the ambulance chasers from Utah (the bad bits, who everybody remembers).
- bogomipz 10y ago
  Who are the ambulance chasers? Caldera?
  - cstross 10y ago
    Yup. Caldera started as a legit Linux distro circa 1994-5, but burned through their funds too quickly. As a pivot they bought out Digital Research including their anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft (for blocking Win95 from running atop DR-DOS). They won big, and the rest is history -- they used a chunk of the funds to buy what they thought was SCO's IP rights, then sued IBM (because that never ends badly, right?).
    - vram22 10y ago
      How did it actually end? or has it even ended? (I know that cases sometimes go on for years, and I vaguely remember reading something about it lately.) I tracked what was happening for a while, at the time - just out of interest - mainly via Pamela Jones' groklaw site, but don't think I read about the end.
      - digi_owl 10y ago
        Last i read the zombie was still stumbling about...
- cmrdporcupine 10y ago
  I worked sysadmin contract at an IBM global services subsidiary in the summer of 1997. I had a task that needed a Unix machine and I installed Linux on it. One of the senior mgmt type people threw up a big fuss about it being Linux and Linux being bad, m'kay, bad stuff, and insisted that the machine should be running a licensed SCO Unix. He ended up getting outvoted but I remember even in 1997 being like "what year is it?" The next year or the year after IBM announced their big Linux pivot where they went all-in on Linux on everything as a big strategy.
hapless 10y ago
SCO and Caldera were a merger that should never have happened. SCO made all of its money off of line items in very expensive deals done by channel sales guys who integrated complex products. Caldera made all of its money by going into shops with SCO-based point-of-sales or industrial control or what-have-you, and cutting the integrators/resellers out of the loop. Putting those two businesses under one roof was doomed to failure.

by grahamm 10y ago

cstross 10y ago

I seem to recall there was a Linux binary loader for OpenServer, along with the Skunkworks project ...? Yeah. Management dropped the ball big-time in 1994. SCO could have been Red Hat really easily if they'd had even a tiny amount of vision. Instead they missed the bus, went into terminal decline, and ended up split between Borland (the good bits) and the ambulance chasers from Utah (the bad bits, who everybody remembers).

bogomipz 10y ago
Who are the ambulance chasers? Caldera?
- cstross 10y ago
  Yup. Caldera started as a legit Linux distro circa 1994-5, but burned through their funds too quickly. As a pivot they bought out Digital Research including their anti-trust lawsuit against Microsoft (for blocking Win95 from running atop DR-DOS). They won big, and the rest is history -- they used a chunk of the funds to buy what they thought was SCO's IP rights, then sued IBM (because that never ends badly, right?).
  - vram22 10y ago
    How did it actually end? or has it even ended? (I know that cases sometimes go on for years, and I vaguely remember reading something about it lately.) I tracked what was happening for a while, at the time - just out of interest - mainly via Pamela Jones' groklaw site, but don't think I read about the end.
    - digi_owl 10y ago
      Last i read the zombie was still stumbling about...
cmrdporcupine 10y ago
I worked sysadmin contract at an IBM global services subsidiary in the summer of 1997. I had a task that needed a Unix machine and I installed Linux on it. One of the senior mgmt type people threw up a big fuss about it being Linux and Linux being bad, m'kay, bad stuff, and insisted that the machine should be running a licensed SCO Unix. He ended up getting outvoted but I remember even in 1997 being like "what year is it?" The next year or the year after IBM announced their big Linux pivot where they went all-in on Linux on everything as a big strategy.

hapless 10y ago

SCO and Caldera were a merger that should never have happened. SCO made all of its money off of line items in very expensive deals done by channel sales guys who integrated complex products. Caldera made all of its money by going into shops with SCO-based point-of-sales or industrial control or what-have-you, and cutting the integrators/resellers out of the loop. Putting those two businesses under one roof was doomed to failure.