United Linux
Encyclopedia
United Linux was an attempt by a consortium of Linux distributors
to create a common base distribution for enterprise
use, so as to minimize duplication of engineering effort and form an effective competitor to Red Hat
. The founding members of United Linux were SUSE
, Turbolinux
, Conectiva
(now merged with MandrakeSoft to form Mandriva
) and Caldera International (later renamed to The SCO Group
). The consortium was announced on May 30, 2002. The end of the project was announced on January 22, 2004.
during the 1990s, Linux distribution
s proliferated. Since the Linux kernel
and GNU
were both free software
, anyone could put together and market a distribution. Many industry observers feared fragmentation and wide-ranging incompatibility, similar to the UNIX wars
of the early 1990s.
The first moves towards the United Linux project were made at COMDEX
in November 1999. There were a number of false starts, but the participants consistently agreed that a unified Linux platform for business made sense. The key factors for success were identified early in 2000.
Starting in March and April 2002, the United Linux board put together a base technical specification, getting input from the four consortium members and their business partners and vendors.
UnitedLinux, LLC was formed May 29, 2002 and the project was announced to the world on May 30, 2002. Two legal agreements were signed by the founding members at this time, the Master Transaction Agreement (MTA) and the Joint Development Contract (JDC); the JDC was also signed by UnitedLinux, LLC. These contracts provided, in part, that intellectual property related to UnitedLinux Software (with certain exceptions) would be assigned to UnitedLinux, LLC. Further, "[e]ach member shall have a broad, royalty-free license to all intellectual property rights in the UnitedLinux Software, entitling each member to "use, copy, modify, distribute, market, advertise, sell, offer for sale, sublicense ... in any manner the Software, including the rights to make derivative works of the Software, to provide access to the Source Code and/or Object Code to any third party, to incorporate the Software into other products or bundle the Software with other products for its own business purposes and any other unlimited right of exploitation"; existing open source licenses, such as the GNU General Public License
, also continued to apply. Disputes were to be settled via International Chamber of Commerce
(ICC) arbitration.
A first beta was released to United Linux member partners on August 14, 2002, a public beta was released on September 25, 2002 and United Linux 1.0 was released on November 19, 2002.
For a detailed case study in what led one of the four partners to embrace the ideals of United Linux see Caldera OpenLinux
.
, with the plan being for SUSE to do most of the engineering work and SCO, Turbolinux and Conectiva primarily to market the distribution in their territories and markets http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0%2C14179%2C2877578%2C00.html.
It was planned that version 1.0 would take six to eight months to release, be the current version for one year and be supported for another year after the release of 2.0. Minimum technical requirements were:
, against Novell, the current owner of SuSE.
The end of United Linux was announced in a Novell
press conference on January 22, 2004 by Richard Seibt, president of the SUSE division. The stated reason was that the SCO v. IBM
lawsuit and The SCO Group's public attacks on Linux had made the alliance unworkable.
It emerged that no real work had been done on United Linux since soon after SCO v. IBM
had started, and that SUSE had ceased active participation around this time. The last United Linux announcements were of Oracle Corporation
support for it on 13 March 2003, and of AMD64 CPU
support on 22 April 2003.
While some have reported that UnitedLinux ended, in fact the group did not gain consensus to dissolve the partnership and the legal entity remains in effect.
The SCO v. Novell complaint was amended on February 3, 2006 to add copyright infringement claims, relating to Novell's distribution of SuSE Linux. Novell responded on April 10 by filing a Request for Arbitration with the ICC, and asking that SCO's claims be stayed in the district court. They argued in the Request that through the MTA and JDC, "the UnitedLinux members agreed that each member would have an irrevocable, perpetual, and worldwide license to use and unlimitedly exploit any intellectual property rights of the other members in the UnitedLinux Software, which would be transferred to the LLC for this very purpose." Novell's motion to stay was granted in part, for those of SCO's claims relating to SuSE.
On September 14, 2007, SCO filed for bankruptcy, and on November 13, the court ruled at SCO's request that the arbitration was automatically stayed
.
SuSE filed a motion to lift this stay on November 10, 2009. However, SCO objected on December 15, and SUSE's motion was denied on January 15, 2010.
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
to create a common base distribution for enterprise
Business
A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...
use, so as to minimize duplication of engineering effort and form an effective competitor to Red Hat
Red Hat
Red Hat, Inc. is an S&P 500 company in the free and open source software sector, and a major Linux distribution vendor. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina with satellite offices worldwide....
. The founding members of United Linux were SUSE
SUSE Linux distributions
SUSE Linux is a computer operating system. It is built on top of the open source Linux kernel and is distributed with system and application software from other open source projects. SUSE Linux is of German origin and mainly developed in Europe. The first version appeared in early 1994, making...
, Turbolinux
Turbolinux
-Linux distribution:The Turbolinux distribution was created as a rebranded Red Hat distribution by Pacific HiTech employee Scott Stone. Scott was the lead release engineer through version 3.6....
, Conectiva
Conectiva
Conectiva was a company founded on August 28, 1995, in Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil, by a group of friends, among them Arnaldo Carvalho de Melo, who was a pioneer in the distribution of Linux and open source software in Brazilian Portuguese, Spanish and English for all of Latin America...
(now merged with MandrakeSoft to form Mandriva
Mandriva
Mandriva S.A. is a publicly traded Linux and open source software company with its headquarters in Paris, France and development center in Curitiba, Brazil. Mandriva, S.A...
) and Caldera International (later renamed to The SCO Group
SCO Group
TSG Group, Inc. is a software company formerly called The SCO Group, Caldera Systems, and Caldera International. After acquiring the Santa Cruz Operation's Server Software and Services divisions, as well as UnixWare and OpenServer technologies, the company changed its focus to UNIX...
). The consortium was announced on May 30, 2002. The end of the project was announced on January 22, 2004.
Formation
With the rise of LinuxLinux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
during the 1990s, Linux distribution
Linux distribution
A Linux distribution is a member of the family of Unix-like operating systems built on top of the Linux kernel. Such distributions are operating systems including a large collection of software applications such as word processors, spreadsheets, media players, and database applications...
s proliferated. Since the Linux kernel
Linux kernel
The Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
and GNU
GNU
GNU is a Unix-like computer operating system developed by the GNU project, ultimately aiming to be a "complete Unix-compatible software system"...
were both free software
Free software
Free software, software libre or libre software is software that can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and which can be copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with restrictions that only ensure that further recipients can also do...
, anyone could put together and market a distribution. Many industry observers feared fragmentation and wide-ranging incompatibility, similar to the UNIX wars
Unix wars
The Unix wars were the struggles between vendors of the Unix computer operating system in the late 1980s and early 1990s to set the standard for Unix thenceforth.- Origins :...
of the early 1990s.
The first moves towards the United Linux project were made at COMDEX
COMDEX
COMDEX was a computer expo held in Las Vegas, Nevada, each November from 1979 to 2003. It was one of the largest computer trade shows in the world, usually second only to the German CeBIT, and by many accounts one of the largest trade shows in any industry sector...
in November 1999. There were a number of false starts, but the participants consistently agreed that a unified Linux platform for business made sense. The key factors for success were identified early in 2000.
Starting in March and April 2002, the United Linux board put together a base technical specification, getting input from the four consortium members and their business partners and vendors.
GNU General Public License
The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....
, also continued to apply. Disputes were to be settled via International Chamber of Commerce
International Chamber of Commerce
The International Chamber of Commerce is the largest, most representative business organization in the world. Its hundreds of thousands of member companies in over 130 countries have interests spanning every sector of private enterprise....
(ICC) arbitration.
A first beta was released to United Linux member partners on August 14, 2002, a public beta was released on September 25, 2002 and United Linux 1.0 was released on November 19, 2002.
For a detailed case study in what led one of the four partners to embrace the ideals of United Linux see Caldera OpenLinux
Caldera OpenLinux
Caldera OpenLinux is a defunct Linux distribution that was created by the former Caldera Systems corporation. It was the early "business-oriented distribution" and foreshadowed the direction of developments that came to most other distributions and the Linux community generally.-Novell and...
.
Technical overview
The distribution was based on SUSE Linux and the Linux Standard BaseLinux Standard Base
The Linux Standard Base is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system...
, with the plan being for SUSE to do most of the engineering work and SCO, Turbolinux and Conectiva primarily to market the distribution in their territories and markets http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupdate/stories/main/0%2C14179%2C2877578%2C00.html.
It was planned that version 1.0 would take six to eight months to release, be the current version for one year and be supported for another year after the release of 2.0. Minimum technical requirements were:
- Linux kernelLinux kernelThe Linux kernel is an operating system kernel used by the Linux family of Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the most prominent examples of free and open source software....
2.4.18 or higher - GNU C LibraryGNU C LibraryThe GNU C Library, commonly known as glibc, is the C standard library released by the GNU Project. Originally written by the Free Software Foundation for the GNU operating system, the library's development has been overseen by a committee since 2001, with Ulrich Drepper from Red Hat as the lead...
2.2.5 - Linux Standard BaseLinux Standard BaseThe Linux Standard Base is a joint project by several Linux distributions under the organizational structure of the Linux Foundation to standardize the software system structure, including the filesystem hierarchy, used with Linux operating system...
compliant - OpenI18N (formerly LI18NUX) compliant (internationalization and localizationInternationalization and localizationIn computing, internationalization and localization are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a target market...
) - GB18030 compliant (the standard CJKCJKCJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which is used in the field of software and communications internationalization.The term CJKV means CJK plus Vietnamese, which constitute the main East Asian languages.- Characteristics :...
character encodingCharacter encodingA character encoding system consists of a code that pairs each character from a given repertoire with something else, such as a sequence of natural numbers, octets or electrical pulses, in order to facilitate the transmission of data through telecommunication networks or storage of text in...
used in ChinaChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
) - GCCGNU Compiler CollectionThe GNU Compiler Collection is a compiler system produced by the GNU Project supporting various programming languages. GCC is a key component of the GNU toolchain...
3.1 - XFree86XFree86XFree86 is an implementation of the X Window System. It was originally written for Unix-like operating systems on IBM PC compatibles and is now available for many other operating systems and platforms. It is free and open source software under the XFree86 License version 1.1. It is developed by the...
4.2 - KDEKDEKDE is an international free software community producing an integrated set of cross-platform applications designed to run on Linux, FreeBSD, Microsoft Windows, Solaris and Mac OS X systems...
3.0
Ending
On January 20, 2004, SCO filed a lawsuitSCO v. Novell
SCO v. Novell was a United States lawsuit in which the The SCO Group claimed ownership of the source code for the Unix operating system, including portions of Linux...
, against Novell, the current owner of SuSE.
The end of United Linux was announced in a Novell
Novell
Novell, 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...
press conference on January 22, 2004 by Richard Seibt, president of the SUSE division. The stated reason was that the SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM is a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted that there are legal uncertainties regarding the use of the Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM's Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM.-Summary:On March 6, 2003,...
lawsuit and The SCO Group's public attacks on Linux had made the alliance unworkable.
It emerged that no real work had been done on United Linux since soon after SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM
SCO v. IBM is a civil lawsuit in the United States District Court of Utah. The SCO Group asserted that there are legal uncertainties regarding the use of the Linux operating system due to alleged violations of IBM's Unix licenses in the development of Linux code at IBM.-Summary:On March 6, 2003,...
had started, and that SUSE had ceased active participation around this time. The last United Linux announcements were of Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation that specializes in developing and marketing hardware systems and enterprise software products – particularly database management systems...
support for it on 13 March 2003, and of AMD64 CPU
Central processing unit
The central processing unit is the portion of a computer system that carries out the instructions of a computer program, to perform the basic arithmetical, logical, and input/output operations of the system. The CPU plays a role somewhat analogous to the brain in the computer. The term has been in...
support on 22 April 2003.
While some have reported that UnitedLinux ended, in fact the group did not gain consensus to dissolve the partnership and the legal entity remains in effect.
The SCO v. Novell complaint was amended on February 3, 2006 to add copyright infringement claims, relating to Novell's distribution of SuSE Linux. Novell responded on April 10 by filing a Request for Arbitration with the ICC, and asking that SCO's claims be stayed in the district court. They argued in the Request that through the MTA and JDC, "the UnitedLinux members agreed that each member would have an irrevocable, perpetual, and worldwide license to use and unlimitedly exploit any intellectual property rights of the other members in the UnitedLinux Software, which would be transferred to the LLC for this very purpose." Novell's motion to stay was granted in part, for those of SCO's claims relating to SuSE.
On September 14, 2007, SCO filed for bankruptcy, and on November 13, the court ruled at SCO's request that the arbitration was automatically stayed
Automatic stay
In bankruptcy law, an automatic stay is an automatic injunction that halts actions by creditors, with certain exceptions, to collect debts from a debtor who has declared bankruptcy. Under section 362 of the United States Bankruptcy Code, , the stay begins at the moment the bankruptcy petition is...
.
SuSE filed a motion to lift this stay on November 10, 2009. However, SCO objected on December 15, and SUSE's motion was denied on January 15, 2010.
External links
- archive.org copy of the United Linux web site, as it was on 1 January 2004
- Caldera, Conectiva, SuSE, Turbolinux Partner To Create UnitedLinux, And Produce A Uniform Version Of Linux For Business - Press release, May 30, 2002