“…Linux, thanks to its broad open-source underpinnings,
has overcome the interoperability troubles that bedeviled SCO Unix
and its competitors. And, more than just that, it showed that
an open-source, open-standard approach was much more successful
than the proprietary ones of the older Unix vendors. So it is that
Caldera, a newish Linux firm, is now taking over SCO’s far older
Unix business.”
“Incompatibility and the resulting company competition remain
potential problems, however. To avoid the mistakes that lead SCO to
its tarnished winner’s crown, Caldera needs to open up SCO’s Unix
applications using either the GPL or Berkeley Software Distribution
(BSD) license, and thus make the good parts of Unix available to
the entire Linux and open-source development community.”
“By making sure it doesn’t buy into the Unix business’ bad old
tricks and staying a Linux company at heart, Caldera can earn a
true victor’s crown. Unix’s branding and technology, the SCO’s
reseller channel — they all count for a lot. But, using the open
approach to create a much broader market for all Unix like
operating systems will be Caldera’s best move. Otherwise, Caldera
and Red Hat may be duking it out for No. 1 … in the 5 percent of
the server and enterprise market left free of Microsoft operating
systems circa 2004.”