The original SCO made SCO Xenix, later branded SCO Unix. Meanwhile, another company called Caldera Systems had been spun out of Novell to keep working on the Linux version that Novell had originally done, back when they had a grand plan to challenge Microsoft on all fronts from applications down to the OS level.
As Linux really took off, though, SCO kind of saw the writing on the wall. They sold their Unix business to Caldera and renamed themselves Tarantella, after a... frankly, I don't remember what it was, anymore, but it was a program they made that had become the bulk of their business.
I'm not sure when Caldera renamed themselves to SCO, but by the time the litigation started flying, Caldera Linux had failed in the market and most of its original staff had left the company. The people now in charge decided that their best asset was IP relating to "real Unix," and the rest is history. Strange, strange history.
The sort of ironic footnote lost to history at this point is that the original Caldera Linux you could get back before they went all troll was, in my recollection, actually a pretty promising distribution. I played with it for a while and was pretty impressed.
I worked for a local distributor of SCO back in the 90's, and because of that was working quite closely with the company. They were pretty cool, and did some interesting stuff. It's sad that their legacy has been tainted by what happened with the other company called SCO.
The original SCO made SCO Xenix, later branded SCO Unix. Meanwhile, another company called Caldera Systems had been spun out of Novell to keep working on the Linux version that Novell had originally done, back when they had a grand plan to challenge Microsoft on all fronts from applications down to the OS level.
As Linux really took off, though, SCO kind of saw the writing on the wall. They sold their Unix business to Caldera and renamed themselves Tarantella, after a... frankly, I don't remember what it was, anymore, but it was a program they made that had become the bulk of their business.
I'm not sure when Caldera renamed themselves to SCO, but by the time the litigation started flying, Caldera Linux had failed in the market and most of its original staff had left the company. The people now in charge decided that their best asset was IP relating to "real Unix," and the rest is history. Strange, strange history.
The sort of ironic footnote lost to history at this point is that the original Caldera Linux you could get back before they went all troll was, in my recollection, actually a pretty promising distribution. I played with it for a while and was pretty impressed.