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Re:Unix History Time Line by Bananenrepublik · 2003-07-27 12:12 · Score: 2, Informative · on Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea

This timeline is official, because even Darl McBride (he who understands UNIX' history) endorses it, look at the fifth entry here.

Re:Missing? by __past__ · 2003-07-27 11:51 · Score: 2, Informative · on Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea

Several of the BSDs (though I'm not sure which, FreeBSD and NetBSD maybe) have ancestries which can be traced back to real unix.

All of the BSDs. FreeBSD and NetBSD share common roots (and obviously OpenBSD too, scince it's a fork of NetBSD), but parted early, in the early eighties or early nineties, depending on how you count. Both derive from the original Berkeley Software Distribution assembled by Bill Joy in 1977, which was a tape containing the original Unix plus some extensions, like a pascal compiler and the ex editor. The second edition featured vi (also written by Joy) and termcap. Here's a nice history of BSD, and here's a Unix timeline.

However, officially no contemporary BSD contains a single line of original Unix code - at least that's the official outcome of a former lawsuit rather similar to todays SCO issue. Incidentally, this lawsuite happened in the early days of the FreeBSD project, which also lost its prime developer some time earlier. It took about a year for them to get back to a usable system with all offending code removed. It was also in the time of the beginning of the rise of Linux (early to mid nineties) - some BSD old-timers still like to muse about whether BSD would be dominant today rather than Linux if this legal battle hadn't happened.

Unix History Time Line by thepacketmaster · 2003-07-27 10:48 · Score: 5, Informative · on Why SCO UNIX Is A Bad Idea

This site, http://www.levenez.com/unix/, has an historical timeline of *ALL* the Unix variants. One thing I don't see is anything crossing over from SCO to Linux. I do see SCO taking some stuff from Linux. Maybe Linus is owed some royalties?

Re:SMP? RCU? by Eunuchswear · 2003-06-17 03:20 · Score: 1 · on SCO Amends Suit, Clarifies "Violations", Triples Damages

UnixWare has had SMP since they merged the Sequent written SVR4 ES/MP stuff to make UnixWare 2, released January 1995 according to Ãric LÃ©vÃ©nez.

Re:I don't un'erstan', padre... by UID30 · 2003-06-17 01:59 · Score: 1 · on SCO Amends Suit, Clarifies "Violations", Triples Damages

What does SCO hope to gain?

Either 1) a legal precedent combined with an assload of cash with which to flog the rest of the civilized world (and, of course, raise their stock price so they can dump & retire stupid rich), or 2) be "aquired" as a company (and, of course, raise their stock price so they can dump & retire stupid rich).

So, you see, it really all boils down to their stock price ... which, if you look at a recent stock chart has been doing amazingly well in the past few days. It will be interesting to see how many SCOX insiders sell & in what quantities ... that will be real test to see when they think they have gone as far as they can go. Luckily for us, the SEC has just implemented a requirement that all insider stock transactions must be reported thru Form 4 Edgar filings within a few days of the transaction (rather than a few months like in the old system). I know I'll be watching that closely.

Do they think they really have a case?

You don't need a case to sue, thank you very much american legal system. Their PR machine is now feeding misinformation at a steady trickle, and the internet is running rampant with it from there. SCO is currently in PR nirvana.

Is this just some blatant attention-getting tactic?

Kindof, yeah. It's really more about their stock price, tho.

on a sideline note, you may find this unix timeline interesting.

Re:In other News... by Hes+Nikke · 2003-06-11 13:44 · Score: 5, Informative · on Apple Sued Over Unix Trademark

OSX is NOT UNIX. It is a proprietary OS, which has some Unix-like properties but is not UNIX by any means. Besides, FreeBSD does not claim it is UNIX, just that it's derived from one.

FYI: Mac OS X's core (darwin) is dirrived from FreeBSD therefore, it must be direived from a UNIX.

for a more visual look at it, see the Unix timeline. on the timeline you can trace Mac OS X all the way back to the 1st AT&T release of UNICS. (not a typo)

Did anybody notice the arrow from Linux 2.2.16 by kompiluj · 2003-06-10 19:48 · Score: 3, Informative · on Did SCO 'Borrow' Linux Code?

You can clearly see on http://www.sco.com/scosource/unixtree/unixhistory0 1.html an arrow drawn from Linux 2.2.16 kernel to the SCO UnixWare. Unfortunately you don't see any arrow going the other direction :). Check out http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html for a non obfuscated version of the graph.

NEXTSTEP terminal.app by macmurph · 2003-06-09 12:19 · Score: 4, Interesting · on Decent Terminal Emulation on Mac OS X?

Here's a screen shot of the NEXTSTEP Terminal.app

http://www.levenez.com/NeXTSTEP/Terminal.jpg

Re:BSD code? by blair1q · 2003-06-06 16:07 · Score: 1 · on Darl & SCO Overview

Here's a much better UNIX timeline

and lots of links on the case. Everybody read before posting.

Confused? by Andre+Breton · 2003-05-20 01:48 · Score: 2, Interesting · on OSI vs SCO

You are confused by that? Bah, that diagram is for sissies. This is much better and way more confuzzling:

www.levenez.com/unix/

No, seriously, check it out. Best *nix genealogical tree I know of.

Re:In case you didn't know... by norwoodites · 2003-05-18 23:36 · Score: 1 · on Microsoft To License SCO's Unix Code

Now Xenix is OpenServer, also it was SCO UNIX at one point at a time: http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html

Re:Timeline by Smallpond · 2003-05-14 09:36 · Score: 2, Informative · on SCO Drops Linux, Says Current Vendors May Be Liable

Actually, they took the chart from here. Note that they added the connection from Unix to Linux, since the original chart shows it based on ideas from Minix.

Re:Ah, youth... by Corgha · 2003-05-12 03:15 · Score: 1 · on Self-Repairing Computers

And the debut of Unix 20 years ago.

Just to set the record straight, I think you mean more than 30 years ago, unless you're talking about the debut of XENIX.

enlighten me by wildcard023 · 2003-05-02 04:06 · Score: 1 · on IBM Denies Charges of Unix Theft

Maybe I'm way off here, but here's the way I see it. IP ownership falls under either:

1) a Patient

2) a Trademark

3) a Copyright

Obviously #2 is right out. This has nothing to do with trademarks.

If this is a patient issue, hasn't the 17 year limit expired already? This would mean that the code must have been written in the ~1986 region.

Now according to: this, AIX was first written it 1986. So patients are right out because of the expiry dates.

So that leaves copyrights. Copyrights protect (sorry RMS) specific works, not the ideas they are based on. I would be amazed if the code from the 1986 version of System V Unix copy be cut and pasted into the Linux kernel directly. I haven't seen the SysV codebase, but that's just silly.

So tell me where I'm wrong. Where does SCO say it has a leg to stand on?

--

Mike

SCO, learn your history. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-04-23 09:08 · Score: 0 · on SCO Threatens Red Hat and SuSE

The History Of Unix.

Being a FreeBSD Zealot, I don't care about Linux. As much as I'd love to see the Linux folk join the BSD crowd, SCO's antisocial behaviour is certainly unsettling and they deserve the decay their market share has suffered.

SCO's Xenix was itself an offshoot of other stuff that they did not invent. Linux was a Minix clone. Minix was itself designed to teach Unix and was a clone of another Unix branch that was unrelated to Xenix. I find it hard to believe there are any valid patents to be infringed.

If anyone has a claim to have the "real Unix" they're lying. There are many bloodlines given the storied past of Unix. Their lawsuit battlecries are an insult to the intelligence of their customers to insist otherwise.

Re:mainframes.. by Mainframes+ROCK! · 2003-03-26 12:06 · Score: 1 · on Mainframe Operators Needed

50 years old? Actually the major two remaining IBM mainframe operating systems are only a few years older than Unix ...

Unix started as UNICS in 1969

MVS(OS/390) started as OS/360 in 196X

VM/CMS started as CP/67 in 1967 (approx)