UnixWare is a
UnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user 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 a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
maintained by The SCO Group (SCO). UnixWare is typically deployed as a
serverIn the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...
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. Early desktop computers are designed to lay flat on the desk, while modern towers stand upright...
. Binary distributions of UnixWare are available for
x86 architectureThe term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architectures based on the Intel 8086 CPU. The 8086 was launched in 1978 as a fully 16-bit extension of Intel's 8-bit based 8080 microprocessor and also introduced segmentation to overcome the 16-bit addressing barrier of such designs...
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 Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
's
Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories 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 multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
. UnixWare is primarily marketed as a
reliableHigh availability is a system design approach and associated service implementation that ensures a prearranged level of operational performance will be met during a contractual measurement period....
, scalable, secure
UnixUnix is a multitasking, multi-user 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 Corp., originally American Telephone and Telegraph Company, is an American telecommunications company that provides voice, video, data, and Internet telecommunications and professional services to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. AT&T is the oldest telecommunications company...
's
Unix System LaboratoriesUnix System Laboratories 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 multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
to develop a desktop version of Unix, codenamed
Destiny.
Destiny was based on the Unix System V release 4.2 kernel. The
MoOLITMoOLIT is a graphical user interface library and application programming interface created by Unix System Laboratories in an attempt to create a bridge between the two competing look-and-feels for Unix workstations at the time: OPEN LOOK and OSF Motif.The library provided common GUI features such...
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
MOTIFIn computing, Motif refers to both a graphical user interface specification and the widget toolkit for building applications that follow that specification under the X Window System on Unix and other POSIX-compliant systems. It emerged in the 1980s as Unix workstations were on the rise, as a...
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 keeps track of the changes that will be made in 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 commonly known as TCP/IP from its most important protocols: Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol , which were the first networking protocols defined in this...
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 an acronym 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 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
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...
, began shipping to
OEMAn original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
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:* Shape memory polymers, in the field of chemical engineering.* Simulation Model Portability: A standard developed by ESA and ECSS for space mission simulators....
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, usually referred to as Pthreads, is a POSIX standard for threads. The standard, POSIX.1c, Threads extensions , defines an API for creating and manipulating threads....
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 is a personal computer company founded in 1982. Once the largest supplier of personal computing systems in the world, Compaq existed as an independent corporation until 2002, when it was acquired for US$25 billion by Hewlett-Packard....
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 concept is often considered synonymous with that of a distributed operating system, but a single image may be presented for more limited purposes, just job scheduling for...
clusterA computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely thus in many respects forming 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. After Compaq merged into Hewlett-Packard , HP continued to develop and market these servers as HP ProLiant. ProLiant systems lead the x86 server market in terms of units and revenue...
servers with a version of 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
XenixXenix is a version of the Unix operating system, licensed to Microsoft from AT&T in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation later acquired exclusive rights to the software, and eventually superseded it with SCO UNIX ....
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 concept is often considered synonymous with that of a distributed operating system, but a single image may be presented for more limited purposes, just job scheduling for...
clusterA computer cluster is a group of linked computers, working together closely thus in many respects forming 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 multinational software and services company. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Attachmate Group. It specializes in network operating systems, such as Novell NetWare; systems management solutions, such as Novell ZENworks; and collaboration solutions, such as Novell Groupwise...
|
|
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 involves a multiprocessor computer hardware architecture where two or more identical processors are connected to a single shared main memory and are controlled by a single OS instance. 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 sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
components including
BINDBIND , or named , is the most widely used DNS software on the Internet.On Unix-like operating systems it is the de facto standard.Originally written by four graduate students at the Computer Systems Research Group at the University of California, Berkeley , the name originates as an acronym from...
/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 in 1987 as a general-purpose Unix scripting language to make report processing easier. Since then, it has undergone many changes and revisions and become widely popular...
/
TclTcl is a scripting language created by John Ousterhout. Originally "born out of frustration", according to the author, with programmers devising their own languages intended to be embedded into applications, Tcl gained acceptance on its own...
and others. Later releases are bundled with numerous additional open-source applications including
ApacheThe Apache HTTP Server, commonly referred to as Apache , is web server software notable for playing a key role in the initial growth of the World Wide Web. In 2009 it became the first web server software to surpass the 100 million website milestone...
,
SambaSamba is a free software re-implementation, originally developed by Andrew Tridgell, of the SMB/CIFS networking protocol. 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 officially, but also commonly "My Sequel") is a relational database management system that runs as a server providing multi-user access to a number of databases. It is named after developer Michael Widenius' daughter, My...
,
PostgreSQLPostgreSQL, often simply Postgres, is an object-relational database management system available for many platforms including Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, MS Windows and Mac OS X. It is released under the PostgreSQL License, which is an MIT-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...
, and
MozillaMozilla is a term used in a number of ways in relation to the Mozilla.org project and the Mozilla Foundation, their defunct commercial predecessor Netscape Communications Corporation, and their related application software....
.
All versions of SCO operating system distributions including UnixWare also have an extensive set of
open sourceThe term open source describes practices in production and development that promote access to the end product's source materials. Some consider open source a philosophy, others consider it a pragmatic methodology...
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