UnixWare is a
UnixUnix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
maintained by The SCO Group (SCO). Unixware is typically deployed as a
serverA server is an application running on a computer that delivers a service. For example, a web server will deliver web pages when requested by a browser . The way a server and a client dialogs is called a protocol...
rather than
desktopA desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Prior to the wide spread of microprocessors, a computer that could fit on a desk was considered remarkably small...
. Binary distributions of UnixWare are available for
x86 architectureThe term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086. The term derived from the fact that many early processors backward compatible with the 8086 also had names ending in "86". Many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the...
computers. It was originally released by
UnivelUnivel was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories that was formed in 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system,...
, a jointly owned venture of
AT&TAT&T Inc. is the largest provider of local, long distance telephone services in the United States, and also serves digital subscriber line Internet access. AT&T is the second largest provider of wireless service in the United States, with over 77 million wireless customers, and more than 150...
's
Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories or USL was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
(USL) and
NovellNovell, Inc. is a global software corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Novell NetWare; identity, security and systems management solutions; and collaboration solutions. Together with WordPerfect, Novell was...
. UnixWare is primarily marketed as a
reliableHigh availability is a system design protocol and associated implementation that ensures a certain degree of operational continuity during a given measurement period....
, scalable, secure
UnixUnix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
server.
After the SVR4 effort to merge
SunOSSunOS is a version of the Unix operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The SunOS name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4 of SunOS...
and System V
AT&TAT&T Inc. is the largest provider of local, long distance telephone services in the United States, and also serves digital subscriber line Internet access. AT&T is the second largest provider of wireless service in the United States, with over 77 million wireless customers, and more than 150...
's
Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories or USL was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
(USL) formed the
UnivelUnivel was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories that was formed in 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system,...
partnership with
NovellNovell, Inc. is a global software corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Novell NetWare; identity, security and systems management solutions; and collaboration solutions. Together with WordPerfect, Novell was...
to develop a desktop version of Unix, codenamed
Destiny.
Destiny was based on the Unix System V release 4.2 kernel.
UnixWare is a
UnixUnix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
operating systemAn operating system is an interface between hardware and user which is responsible for the management and coordination of activities and the sharing of the resources of the computer that acts as a host for computing applications run on the machine. As a host, one of the purposes of an operating...
maintained by The SCO Group (SCO). Unixware is typically deployed as a
serverA server is an application running on a computer that delivers a service. For example, a web server will deliver web pages when requested by a browser . The way a server and a client dialogs is called a protocol...
rather than
desktopA desktop computer is a personal computer in a form intended for regular use at a single location, as opposed to a mobile laptop or portable computer. Prior to the wide spread of microprocessors, a computer that could fit on a desk was considered remarkably small...
. Binary distributions of UnixWare are available for
x86 architectureThe term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086. The term derived from the fact that many early processors backward compatible with the 8086 also had names ending in "86". Many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the...
computers. It was originally released by
UnivelUnivel was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories that was formed in 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system,...
, a jointly owned venture of
AT&TAT&T Inc. is the largest provider of local, long distance telephone services in the United States, and also serves digital subscriber line Internet access. AT&T is the second largest provider of wireless service in the United States, with over 77 million wireless customers, and more than 150...
's
Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories or USL was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
(USL) and
NovellNovell, Inc. is a global software corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Novell NetWare; identity, security and systems management solutions; and collaboration solutions. Together with WordPerfect, Novell was...
. UnixWare is primarily marketed as a
reliableHigh availability is a system design protocol and associated implementation that ensures a certain degree of operational continuity during a given measurement period....
, scalable, secure
UnixUnix is a computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...
server.
Univel (1991–1993)
After the SVR4 effort to merge
SunOSSunOS is a version of the Unix operating system developed by Sun Microsystems for their workstation and server computer systems. The SunOS name is usually only used to refer to versions 1.0 to 4.1.4 of SunOS...
and System V
AT&TAT&T Inc. is the largest provider of local, long distance telephone services in the United States, and also serves digital subscriber line Internet access. AT&T is the second largest provider of wireless service in the United States, with over 77 million wireless customers, and more than 150...
's
Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories or USL was originally organized as part of Bell Labs in 1989. USL joined with the UNIX Software Operation, also a Bell Laboratories division, in 1990. It assumed responsibility for Unix development and licensing activities...
(USL) formed the
UnivelUnivel was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories that was formed in 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system,...
partnership with
NovellNovell, Inc. is a global software corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Novell NetWare; identity, security and systems management solutions; and collaboration solutions. Together with WordPerfect, Novell was...
to develop a desktop version of Unix, codenamed
Destiny.
Destiny was based on the Unix System V release 4.2 kernel. The
MoOLITMoOLIT was a graphical user interface library and application programming interface created by Unix System Laboratories in an attempt to make a compromise between the two competing look-and-feels for Unix workstations at the time—OPEN LOOK and OSF Motif.The library provided common GUI...
toolkit was used for the windowing system, allowing the user to choose between an
OPEN LOOKOPEN LOOK is a graphical user interface specification for UNIX workstations. It was originally defined in the late 1980s by Sun Microsystems and AT&T.-History:...
or
MOTIFMotif is an alternate spelling of motive, and may refer to these possible items:
In creative work:* Motif , any recurring element in a story that has symbolic significance...
like look and feel at run time. In order to make the system more robust on commodity desktop hardware the
VeritasVeritas Software Corp. was an international software company that was founded in 1983 as Tolerant Systems, renamed Veritas Software Corp. in 1989, and merged with Symantec in 2005. It was headquartered in Mountain View, California...
VXFSThe VERITAS File System, , is an extent-based file system. It was originally developed by VERITAS Software. Through an OEM agreement, VxFS is used as the primary filesystem of the HP-UX operating system...
journaling file systemA journaling file system is a file system that logs changes to a journal before committing them to the main file system...
was used in place of the
UFSThe Unix file system is a file system used by many Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is also called the Berkeley Fast File System, the BSD Fast File System or FFS...
file system used in SVR4.
Destiny was released in 1992 as UnixWare 1.0 in two
editions - a
Personal Edition which included Novell IPX networking but not
TCP/IPThe Internet Protocol Suite is the set of communications protocols used for the Internet and other similar networks. It is named from two of the most important protocols in it: the Transmission Control Protocol and the Internet Protocol , which were the first two networking protocols defined in...
and an
Advanced Server edition which included TCP and other server software. The personal edition was limited to two active users, while the server edition included an unlimited user license. Around 35,000 copies of UnixWare 1.0 were sold.
In 1993 Novell purchased USL from AT&T and merged USL and Univel into a new Unix Systems Group.
Novell (1993–1995)
In 1994 Novell released UnixWare 1.1, which included TCP/IP in both the personal and advanced server editions.
The MOTIF 1.2 runtime libraries were included for COSE compliance. NUC (NetWare Unix Client) software was included for integration with Novell NetWare servers. The
Advanced MergeMerge is a software system which allows a user to run DOS/Windows 3.1 on SCO UNIX, in an 8086 virtual machine.Merge was originally developed to run DOS under UNIX System V Release 2 on an AT&T 6300+ personal computer...
application was installed on both the server and personal editions to allow running
DOSDOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is a shorthand term for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions Windows 95, 98, and ME.Related systems...
and Windows 3.1 applications.
Novell later released bug-fix versions 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3 and finally 1.1.4 on 19 June 1995.
UnixWare 2.0, based on the Unix System V release 4.2MP kernel, which added support for
multiprocessingMultiprocessing is the use of two or more central processing units within a single computer system. The term also refers to the ability of a system to support more than one processor and/or the ability to allocate tasks between them...
was system began shipping to
OEMAn original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components which are purchased by a second company and retailed under the second company's brand name...
s and developers in December 1994,
and to the consumer market in March 1995.
Both the personal and server editions supported two processor systems, with the possibility of buying extra
Processor Upgrade licenses for the server edition. Supported multiprocessor systems included standard Intel MP 1.1
SMP-In technology:* In computing, Symmetric multiprocessing, the use of multiple CPUs.* In computing, Symbolic Manipulation Program, a computer algebra system and predecessor of Mathematica....
machines and Corollary C-bus systems. The system supported NetWare
ODIThe Open Data-Link Interface , developed by Apple and Novell, serves the same function as Microsoft and 3COM's Network Driver Interface Specification . Originally, ODI was written for NetWare and Macintosh environments. Like NDIS, ODI provides rules that establish a vendor-neutral interface between...
network drivers in an effort to increase the number of supported network interfaces.
Other new features in the release included a
POSIX ThreadsPOSIX Threads, or Pthreads, is a POSIX standard for threads. The standard defines an API for creating and manipulating threads. Pthreads are most commonly used on Unix-like POSIX systems such as FreeBSD, NetBSD, GNU/Linux, Mac OS X and Solaris, but Microsoft Windows implementations also exist...
library in addition to the older
UIUnix International or UI was an association created in 1988 to promote open standards, especially the Unix operating system. Its most notable members were AT&T and Sun Microsystems, and in fact the commonly accepted reason for its existence was as a counterbalance to the Open Software Foundation ,...
threads library.
The Santa Cruz Operation (1995–2001)
In 1995 The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) acquired UnixWare from Novell. The exact terms of this transaction were disputed (see SCO vs Novell); courts have subsequently determined that Novell retained the ownership of Unix.
When the transfer was made public SCO announced that it would work towards merging UnixWare with its OpenServer SVR3.2 based OS,
however the first release of UnixWare from SCO was version 2.1 in 1996.
At the release of UnixWare 2.1 it was announced that the proposed UnixWare/OpenServer merger was known as project
Gemini, to be available in 1997 and a 64-bit version of UnixWare was to be developed for 1998.
One controversial change was the adoption of an OpenServer like user licensing policy. The Univel and Novell releases of UnixWare allowed 2 users on the personal edition or unlimited numbers of users on the server edition. With UnixWare 2.1 the server edition included a license for up to 5 users. Customers wanting more users could buy 10, 25, 100, 500 or unlimited user license extensions.
SCO released three updates to UnixWare 2.1. UnixWare 2.1.1, released in 1996 achieved
Unix 95The Single UNIX Specification is the collective name of a family of standards for computer operating systems to qualify for the name "Unix"...
branding.
UnixWare 2.1.2 and 2.1.3, available in 1998, were largely bug fix releases.
In 1998
CompaqCompaq Computer Corporation was an American personal computer company founded in 1982, and is now a brand name of Hewlett-Packard.The company was formed by Rod Canion, Jim Harris and Bill Murto — former Texas Instruments senior managers...
released a package known as the Integrity XC consisting of a
single-system imageIn distributed computing, a single system image cluster is a cluster of machines that appears to be one single system.The interest in SSI clusters is based on the perception that they may be simpler to use and administer than more specialized clusters....
clusterA computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks...
of
ProliantProliant is a brand of server computers that was originally developed and marketed by Compaq. Proliant systems were one of the first x86 servers to be sold in a rack mount configuration, and have led the market in sales since introduction. After Compaq merged into Hewlett-Packard , HP continued to...
servers with a version of version UnixWare 2.1,
UnixWare NonStop ClustersNonStop Clusters was an add-on package for SCO UnixWare that allowed creation of fault-tolerant single-system image clusters of machines running UnixWare...
.
The first results of the Gemini project were made available in early 1998 as UnixWare 7.
SCO named the kernel version Unix System V release 5. The system was largely based on UnixWare 2.1, with features for driver compatibility with OpenServer, allowing use of OpenServer network drivers. System administration utilities from OpenServer,
scoadmin, replaced the original UnixWare
sysadm utility. Major new features of UnixWare 7 included multi-path I/O, large files and file systems and support for large memory systems,
A surprising feature of UnixWare 7 was that it lacked the Xenix compatibility features of both its ancestors. This was for licensing reasons, to avoid paying Microsoft for the code that they had included in SVR3.2.
In 1999 SCO released the UnixWare 7.1 update which increased the number of editions, the
Business (5 user),
Department (25 user) and
Enterprise (50 user) editions replaced the earlier personal and server editions. The WebTop application from
Tarantella, Inc.Santa Cruz Operation was a software company based in Santa Cruz, California which was best known for selling three Unix variants for Intel x86 processors: Xenix, SCO UNIX , and UnixWare. Eric Raymond, in his book The Art of Unix Programming, calls SCO the "first UNIX company"...
was included.
In 2000 SCO released the UnixWare 7.1.1 update. Simultaneously the
UnixWare NonStop ClustersNonStop Clusters was an add-on package for SCO UnixWare that allowed creation of fault-tolerant single-system image clusters of machines running UnixWare...
7.1.1+IP
single-system imageIn distributed computing, a single system image cluster is a cluster of machines that appears to be one single system.The interest in SSI clusters is based on the perception that they may be simpler to use and administer than more specialized clusters....
clusterA computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely so that in many respects they form a single computer. The components of a cluster are commonly, but not always, connected to each other through fast local area networks...
package was released. This new package allowed commodity hardware to be used as well as the proprietary Compaq hardware supported by the earlier Integrity XC product, and was directly available from SCO.
In 2001 SCO sold their Server Software and Services divisions together with the rights to the UnixWare and OpenServer products to Caldera.
Caldera/SCO/The SCO Group (2001–present)
In 2001 Caldera Systems purchased the Server and Services divisions of The Santa Cruz Operation which included both the OpenServer and UnixWare product lines. Caldera subsequently changed the company name to SCO and then, after broadening its product line to include mobile products and services, to The SCO Group. Caldera's initial release of UnixWare was renamed OpenUNIX 8. This release is what would have been UnixWare 7.1.2. Later what was then the newly renamed SCO would revert to the previous UnixWare brand and version release numbering, releasing UnixWare 7.1.3 and 7.1.4. No further OpenUNIX releases were made available and OpenUNIX 8.1.2 (OU812) was never released. The SCO Group continues to maintain UnixWare and issues periodic maintenance updates and support.
Timeline of UnixWare
| Year |
Release |
Company |
Codebase |
Kernel version |
Description |
| 1991 |
UnixWare 1.0 |
Univel Univel was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories that was formed in 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system,...
|
SVR4.2 |
1 |
|
| 1993 |
UnixWare 1.1 |
NovellNovell, Inc. is a global software corporation based in the United States specializing in enterprise operating systems such as SUSE Linux Enterprise and Novell NetWare; identity, security and systems management solutions; and collaboration solutions. Together with WordPerfect, Novell was...
|
|
1 |
|
| |
UnixWare 1.1.1 |
Novell |
|
1 |
|
| |
UnixWare 1.1.2 |
Novell |
|
1 |
|
| |
UnixWare 1.1.3 |
Novell |
|
1 |
|
| 1995 |
UnixWare 2.0 |
Novell |
SVR4.2MP |
2.1 |
Support for SMPIn computing, symmetric multiprocessing or SMP involves a multiprocessor computer architecture where two or more identical processors can connect to a single shared main memory. Most common multiprocessor systems today use an SMP architecture...
|
| |
UnixWare 1.1.4 |
Novell |
SVR4.2 |
1 |
Final release of UnixWare 1 |
| 1995 |
UnixWare 2.1 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
SVR4.2MP |
2.1 |
|
| |
UnixWare 2.1.1 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
|
2.1.1 |
|
| |
UnixWare 2.1.2 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
|
2.1.2 |
|
| 1998 |
UnixWare 2.1.3 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
|
2.1.3 |
Final release of UnixWare 2 |
| 1998 |
UnixWare 7 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
SVR5 |
7.0.1 |
A "merge" of UnixWare 2 and OpenServer 5 |
| |
UnixWare 7.0.1 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
|
7.0.1 |
|
| 1999 |
UnixWare 7.1.0 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
|
7.1.0 |
|
| 2000 |
UnixWare 7.1.1 |
Santa Cruz Operation |
|
7.1.1 |
|
| 2001 |
Open UNIX 8 |
Caldera Systems |
|
7.1.2 |
|
| 2003 |
UnixWare 7.1.3 |
The SCO Group |
|
7.1.3 |
|
| 2004 |
UnixWare 7.1.4 |
The SCO Group |
|
7.1.4 |
No longer included the Linux Kernel Personality |
| 2004 |
UnixWare 7.1.4 MP1 |
The SCO Group |
|
7.1.4 |
Maintenance pack 1 |
| 2005 |
UnixWare 7.1.4 MP2 |
The SCO Group |
|
7.1.4 |
Maintenance pack 2 |
| 2006 |
UnixWare 7.1.4 MP3 |
The SCO Group |
|
7.1.4 |
Maintenance pack 3 |
| 2008 |
UnixWare 7.1.4 MP4 |
The SCO Group |
|
7.1.4 |
Maintenance pack 4 |
SCO Skunkware / Open Source
All versions of UnixWare have included significant
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
components including
BINDBIND , for Berkeley Internet Name Domain, or named , is the most commonly used Domain Name System server on the Internet. On Unix-like systems it is the de facto standard....
/X11/
SendmailSendmail is a general purpose internetwork email routing facility that supports many kinds of mail-transfer and -delivery methods, including the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol used for email transport over the Internet....
/DHCP/
PerlPerl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Perl was originally developed by Larry Wall, a linguist working as a systems administrator for NASA, in 1987, as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone...
/
TclTcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout...
and others. Later releases are bundled with numerous additional open-source applications including
ApacheThe Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is a web server notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server to surpass the 100 million web site milestone...
,
SambaSamba is a free software re-implementation of SMB/CIFS networking protocol, originally developed by Australian Andrew Tridgell. As of version 3, Samba provides file and print services for various Microsoft Windows clients and can integrate with a Windows Server domain, either as a Primary Domain...
,
MySQLMySQL is a relational database management system which has more than 6 million installations. MySQL stands for "My Structured Query Language". The program runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases...
,
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL is an object-relational database management system . It is released under a BSD-style license and is thus free and open source software...
,
OpenSSHOpenSSH is a set of computer programs providing encrypted communication sessions over a computer network using the ssh protocol. It was created as an open source alternative to the proprietary Secure Shell software suite offered by SSH Communications Security...
, and
MozillaMozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the now-defunct Netscape Communications Corporation and its related application software, including the Mozilla.org group and its successor the Mozilla Foundation....
.
All versions of SCO operating system distributions including UnixWare also have an extensive set of
open sourceOpen source is an approach to the design, development, and distribution of software, offering practical accessibility to a software's source code. Some consider open source as one of various possible design approaches, while others consider it a critical strategic element of their operations...
packages available for free download via the
SCO SkunkwareSCO Skunkware, often referred to as simply "Skunkware", is a collection of Open Source software projects ported, compiled, and packaged for free redistribution on SCO operating environments. SCO Skunkware packaged components exist for SCO Xenix, SCO UNIX, SCO OpenServer 5, SCO OpenServer 6,...
site.
External links