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| For the Sake of History, a Novell 1994 10K: Unix source and UnixWare 2 separate products |
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Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 10:07 PM EDT
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Do you remember Darl McBride testifying at trial in SCO v. Novell in April that if you wanted to get Unix source code, the only way to get it was to license UnixWare and that UnixWare was just the latest version of Unix? The court believed that story, so for the sake of history and truth, then, here is a Novell
SEC 10K filing from 1994, when Novell was the place you went to in order to license UnixWare and Unix System V. They sold both UnixWare and Unix source code as two separate products.
As you will see, they had a two-fold business:UNIX SYSTEMS GROUP. USG provides a full suite of UNIX operating system and UNIX
connectivity products. Key products include:
Operating System Products. Novell's UnixWare operating system provides a
powerful application server and client for today's distributed computing
environments. The current product offerings are the UnixWare Application Server
1.1 and the UnixWare Personal Edition 1.1. UnixWare uses the network services
available from NetWare and the cross-platform development tools available from
AppWare to make applications available throughout the entire enterprise.
UnixWare is easy to use, enabling users to be productive right away. Its fully
graphical user interface gives users access to all the enterprise-wide
information and services available in the corporate computing environment with
simple point-and-click mouse functions. UnixWare also supports a variety of
international languages....
Novell also supplies the UNIX operating system source code to other UNIX
system vendors. The latest version, UNIX System V Release 4.2 (SVR4.2), unifies
several earlier versions and offers greatly enhanced ease of use and ease of
administration features. Duh. Unix System V and UnixWare were not the same thing to Novell, nor was UnixWare just the latest version of Unix System V or the only way to get the source. That gives context to the wording of the Novell-Santa Cruz Asset Purchase Agreement the following year:
This ASSET PURCHASE AGREEMENT (the "Agreement") is made and entered into
as of September 19, 1995 by and between The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc.,
a California corporation ("Buyer") and Novell, Inc., a Delaware
corporation ("Seller").
RECITALS
A. Seller is engaged in the business of developing a line of software
products currently known as Unix and UnixWare, the sale of binary and
source code licenses to various versions of Unix and UnixWare, the
support of such products and the sale of other products which are
directly related to Unix and UnixWare (collectively, the "Business").
So, when in history did it become "true" that the only way to get Unix source was to license UnixWare? I guess I'll check Santa Cruz 10Ks next. Incidentally, you will note that attached to the above filing as a paper exhibit is:
10.8 - Agreement and Plan of Reorganization and Merger dated February 12, 1993, among
Novell, Inc.; Novell Acquisition Corp.; UNIX System Laboratories, Inc.; and
American Telephone and Telegraph Company. (11)(Appendix A) And here for history is Novell's account of the USL story: In April 1991, the Company invested $15.0 million in UNIX System
Laboratories, Inc. (USL), a subsidiary of AT&T that develops and licenses the
UNIX operating system and other standards-based software to customers worldwide.
In December 1991, the Company announced the formation of Univel, a joint venture
with USL, formed to accelerate the expanded use of the UNIX operating system in
the personal computer and network computing marketplace. Novell and USL
contributed cash and technology rights to Univel. Then in June 1993, the Company
acquired the remaining portion of USL by issuing approximately 11.1 million
shares of Novell common stock valued at $321.8 million in exchange for all of
the outstanding stock of USL not previously owned by Novell and assumed
additional liabilities of $9.4 million. The transaction was accounted for as a
purchase and, on this basis, resulted in a one-time write-off of $268.7 million
for purchased research and development in the third quarter of fiscal 1993.
...
In April 1991, the Company purchased a minority equity position in UNIX
System Laboratories, Inc. (USL), a subsidiary of AT&T that develops and licenses
the UNIX operating system and other standards-based software to vendors
worldwide. This cash investment of $15.0 million was accounted for using the
cost method. Later, in December 1991, the Company announced the formation of
Univel, a 55% owned joint venture with USL, formed to accelerate the expanded
use of the UNIX operating system in the personal computer and network computing
marketplace. Novell and USL contributed cash and technology rights to Univel. In
June 1993, the Company acquired the remaining unowned portion of USL by issuing
approximately 11.1 million shares of Novell common stock valued at $321.8
million in exchange for all of the outstanding stock of USL not previously owned
by Novell and assumed additional liabilities of $9.4 million. The transaction
was accounted for as a purchase and, on this basis, a one-time write-off of
$268.7 million for purchased research and development was incurred.
Univel has been included in the consolidated financial statements of Novell
since December 1991 by virtue of Novell's 55% ownership interest. That ownership
interest is now 100% since the June 14, 1993 acquisition of USL, whereby both
USL and Univel are now included in the consolidated financial statements of
Novell.
Update: And here is a 1994 press release about Novell releasing UnixWare 2, and it mentions that it was compatible with SCO UNIX and with SVR4:
UnixWare 2 supports more than 3,000 existing applications and maintains compatibility with SVR4, SCO UNIX and Intel ABI applications.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 10:17 PM EDT |
| Dale? [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bbaston on Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 10:25 PM EDT |
Put error in titli > title
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IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO
imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bbaston on Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 10:26 PM EDT |
Links appreciated!
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IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO
imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: bbaston on Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 10:27 PM EDT |
Mention the article you're commenting on, please.
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IMBW, IANAL2, IMHO, IAVO
imaybewrong, iamnotalawyertoo, inmyhumbleopinion, iamveryold[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 10:43 PM EDT |
| http://wiretap.area.com/Gopher/Library/Techdoc/Unix/novell.att [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: kawabago on Wednesday, August 27 2008 @ 11:46 PM EDT |
He just keeps doing it and no one says anything. At this point I would expect
everyone in the court room to burst out laughing when Darl swears to tell the
truth! Is it even possible to find a place in the record where you could point
and say "Darl was telling the truth here"? I doubt it.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, August 28 2008 @ 01:28 AM EDT |
Novell acquired Unix System Laboratories on June 14 1993.
On September 21 1993, Novell disclosed its plan with Unix and UnixWare:
<press release>
Newsgroups: comp.sys.novell
Path:
gmd.de!xlink.net!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!news.b
yu.edu!news.provo.novell.com!newsgate!Postmaster
From: Michael_Dona...@Novell.COM (Donahue, Michael)
Subject: PR-Unified UNIX Operating Syste
Message-ID: <C56E433301E70370@MHS.Novell.COM>
Sender: Michael_Dona...@Novell.COM
Organization: Novell, Inc.
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1993 17:48:03 GMT
Lines: 117
Novell Moves to Mainstream Unified UNIX Operating System Standardizing
Source Code on UnixWare
NetWare and UnixWare Matched as System Components for Rightsizing
September 21, 1993, NEW YORK -- Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL) today
detailed moves
it is taking to bring PC market economies to the UNIX system marketplace
in response to rapidly changing customer needs for rightsized business
computing systems. Novell intends to expand the established UNIX systems
market by enabling computer users in large organizations to rely on a
unified UNIX standard for integrating advanced applications and services
with the desktop systems they already use.
Novell is accelerating integration between the UNIX system and its
NetWare network computing software. This is being done with UnixWare,
Novell's
own UNIX system product, but it is also being incorporated in the UNIX
system source code available under license from Novell to other computer
industry vendors. Current releases of UnixWare already provide for
common file system and communications services that extend from the
NetWare environment.
Follow-on product releases in 1994, will provide common network
management, common system directories, and other features to enable
NetWare and Unix system offerings to be seamlessly integrated matched
system software components.
In a significant change from past UNIX system source code licensing
practices, beginning in the fourth quarter of 1993, UNIX source code from
Novell will be provided as a complete ready-to-ship product identical to
Novell's UnixWare. Original equipment manufacturer partners will not be
required, as they were before, to make redundant R&D investments and
spend valuable engineering resources to create finished UNIX system
products.
Customers are driving the industry toward a fully unified UNIX system as
a single open standard, based on one specification. Novell is acting as
a catalyst to help bring this about, and momentum is building to reach
this objective with the early September agreement between the X/Open
standards group, the UNIX system community and Novell on a comprehensive
specification to enable applications to be portable between UNIX-based
operating systems. UnixWare, and source code from Novell for UNIX
systems, will be 100 percent compatible with the X/Open standards.
"Novell bought the UNIX system to lead the industry in unifying it, while
increasing its openness and strengthening its value to customers through
volume distribution," said Raymond J. Noorda president, chairman and
chief executive officer of Novell. "Our business objective is to extend
the
value of the UNIX system to the tens of millions of industry standard
computers shipped with Intel processors."
Extending the success of the UNIX system through high-volume distribution
will broaden its market foundation. Customers will benefit from
increasing multi-vendor computer choices and corresponding growth in the
availability
of commercial applications that take advantage of the capabilities of the
advanced 32-bit UNIX operating system.
Novell's strategy is to provide core system software components to
support rightsizing. Rightsizing is redefining the IT industry as
customers
optimize the cost and performance of their IT systems through
multi-vendor solutions. Increasingly, customers are relying on UNIX
system solutions in moving applications from larger systems to
distributed network computing environments - downsizing. The UNIX
system is already the primary
platform for applications that run on mid-range and larger systems. In
addition, they are upsizing their desktop systems by relying on NetWare
for delivering system services such as security and network management
traditionally maintained by larger systems.
"With UnixWare alongside NetWare, Novell is at the convergence of change
that is shaping the way customers re-deploy their IT systems as
rightsized systems," said Kanwal S. Rekhi, executive vice president
Corporate
Technology and general manager UNIX Systems Group. "Customers moving
from customized large systems to industry standard hardware are rapidly
transforming the IT industry into a component business. Novell is
delivering UnixWare, NetWare and families of associated products as
matched systems components to deliver computer users the rightsizing
platform of choice."
Since expanding its UNIX system effort with AT&T in 1991, Novell's
UnixWare and NetWare product development directions have had a common
objective of responding to the customer requirement for a single network
computing environment that supports multi-vendor IT solutions.
NetWare and UnixWare are both open standards available to vendors at
every level of the computing industry as source code, and on a product
license basis. Through partnerships with other systems vendors, Novell
intends to ensure the success of UnixWare on servers. In addition to
Novell providing UnixWare for computers using the Intel architecture, the
company will work with industry partners to make UnixWare available on
market leading RISC-based
processors. Novell has already taken this step with its NetWare system
software which will be available to run on the Hewlett Packard PA-RISC,
Sun Microsystems SPARC, and Digital Equipment Alpha processors in 1994.
According to an InfoCorp study released in June 1993, more than 55
million information system users worldwide already rely on UNIX-based
operating systems. UNIX systems are the primary delivery platform for
applications from mid-range and larger systems. NetWare provides the
primary system software for computer networks with more than 35 million
users connected to NetWare network computing environments.
In June 1993, Novell acquired UNIX Systems Laboratories from AT&T, and
with it, ownership of UNIX system technology and the rights to the
trademark UNIX. Novell, Inc. is an information system software company,
developer of network services, specialized and general purpose operating
system products, and application programming tools. Novell's NetWare,
UnixWare and AppWare families of products provide matched system
components for rightsized information systems within multi-vendor network
computing environments.
</press release>
On December 16, 1993, Novell announced UnixWare 1.1, see
http://www.krsaborio.net/research/1990s/93/931216_a.htm [ Reply to This | # ]
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