On Thu, 2003-07-24 at 15:32, Yuda wrote:
> Pardon my ignorace, whats SCO?
The Santa Cruz Organization. It made its name making a version of Unix
(in conjunction with Microsoft) called Xenix for the Intel 8086 and 8088
processors. Microsoft dropped its support for Xenix, which was
eventually replaced by SCO Unix. (SCO Unix is based on Unix System V
rather than System III that Xenix was based on.) Throughout its history
SCO has competed with a number of other Unix-like operating systems for
the Intel-Unix market (in the order that I think if them):
* BSD
* Minix
* HURD
* Linux
* Solaris
* QNX
SCO Unix has usually done quite well, having a strong position in the
Point of Sale market (SCO runs the McDonalds POS system, for example).
Most of the above operating systems have had poor marketing, poor
support, and were not particularly interested in the Intel market, which
also helped SCO sales quite a bit.
Caldera, which made a Linux distribution, took over SCO in 2000. Quite
quickly Caldera dropped its Linux focus, its name, and its CEO: Ransom
Love. (I think Ransom Love is a fantastic name for a CEO, which is the
only reason I mentioned him at all.) In the last three months, SCO has
become prominent by suing IBM for intellectual property theft, claiming
that IBM took parts of the Unix code-base (which it owns, though some
dispute this) and used it in Linux. No evidence has been brought
forward.
[I hope that was balanced history :)]
--
Michael JasonSmith http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~mpj17/
