UnixWare

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**UnixWare**
Website:	SCO UnixWare 7.1.4
Company/ developer:	Univel, SCO Group
OS family:	Unix
Source model:	Closed source
Latest stable release:	7.1.4 MP2 / February 23, 2005
Kernel type:	Monolithic kernel
License:	Proprietary
Working state:	Current

UnixWare is a flavor of the Unix operating system. It was originally released by Univel, a joint-owned venture of AT&T's Unix System Laboratories (USL) and Novell. In June 1993 Novell acquired USL and UNIX System V source code from AT&T and formed Novell Unix Systems Group.

For some time in the early 1990s UnixWare was one of the "three pillars" of Novell's long-term business strategy, as Ray Noorda put it, they were "NetWare, UnixWare and AppWare". At the time their traditional cash cow, NetWare, was rapidly being displaced by Windows NT-based servers, and Novell was trying to diversify. During this time Novell's chief executive spent much of the company's war chest to purchase suites of products the company could use to "take on" Microsoft both in the marketplace and in the courts. It has been suggested that the strategy was partly influenced due to a personal dislike of Bill Gates by Novell's Chief Noorda.^{[citation needed]}

Having failed to make any headway with the technically interesting DR-DOS, it appears Noorda saw UnixWare as a way to make an "end run" around Windows' dominance, providing Novell with a powerful operating system that could compete with NT (which was not yet well established), but with a much longer history and considerably more testing. There was an attempt to combine NetWare and UnixWare to create a single new system known as SuperNOS (Network Operating System), which would offer users the well-known NetWare networking services, while offering developers the well-known Unix development platform. Although Novell already offered a way for third parties to write code for NetWare, but it was an arduous process that UnixWare would dramatically improve.

UnixWare never really had a chance to prove itself in the marketplace. By the time it was starting to mature in late 1994, Noorda was in the process of being forced out of Novell. With his departure the new management decided to return to the cash cow, ignoring and then selling off all of the acquisitions Noorda made over the previous few years. This was, in retrospect, a terrible move; SuperNOS was perhaps the only obvious way for them to stay relevant. But, as one of the "Noordisms", management saw it as just another useless product distracting them from the "real" market.

Novell sold UnixWare in 1995 to the Santa Cruz Operation, which in turn sold its Unix-related businesses to Caldera Systems in 2001. Caldera changed its name to SCO Group in 2002, and this SCO Group is the current proprietor of UnixWare.

[edit] Timeline of Unixware

Year	Release	Company	Codebase	Kernel version	Description
1991	1.0	Univel	SVR4.2	1
	1.1	Univel		1
1993	1.2	Novell		1
	1.3	Novell		1
1995	2.0	Novell	SVR4.2MP	2.1
1995	2.1	Old SCO		2.1
	2.1.1	Old SCO		2.1.1
	2.1.2	Old SCO		2.1.2
	2.1.3	Old SCO		2.1.3
1997	7	Old SCO	SVR5	7.0.1	A "merge" of UnixWare 2 and OpenServer 5
	7.0.1	Old SCO		7.0.1
1999	7.1.0	Old SCO		7.1.0
2001	7.1.1	Old SCO		7.1.1
	OpenUNIX 8	Caldera		7.1.2
2003	7.1.3	SCO Group		7.1.3
2004	7.1.4	SCO Group		7.1.4

The SCO Group released UnixWare 7.1.2 with Linux binary compatibility as OpenUNIX 8 (cf. OpenLinux) on July 2, 2001. Versions thereafter restored the UnixWare name and even the old version numbering scheme: the next UnixWare release was 7.1.3 in October 2004. The current release is 7.1.4 of May 2005.

[edit] External links

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