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Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 02:07 AM EST

One of the items IBM asked SCO for in discovery was documents related to the Caldera v. Microsoft case, at least the discovery requests and responses in the case, and SCO answered that they didn't have them, that Canopy had destroyed them, but that maybe Microsoft had a copy of them:

"As we previously mentioned, SCO was not a party to this litigation and does not have possession of such documents. Moreover, as we related to your colleague Peter Ligh in May 2003, the documents in the Canopy Group's possession were destroyed pursuant to Court Order issued in that unrelated litigation. Our understanding, however, is that Microsoft or its lawyers may still have the documents you are seeking, so you may wish to contact them."

I must admit, this caught my eye, because the story in the press at the time was that the court documents were destroyed in 2002 at the request of Caldera:

"The 937 boxes of court-ordered documents had been safeguarded by Redman Records of Salt Lake City since the mid-1990s as part of Caldera International's unfair-competition lawsuit against Microsoft.

"That suit was settled in January 2000, and Caldera -- now The SCO Group -- was paying up to $1,500 a month to store the documents. In October, the company persuaded U.S. District Judge Dee Benson to order their destruction.

"However, just as the shredding was to begin, Sun Microsystem's attorneys halted it with a subpoena. The company, seeking evidence that might help in its own antitrust suit against Microsoft, eventually pulled out 40 boxes of the computer giant's secret internal communications for digital imaging."

I started looking around, and lo and behold, some of the documents still exist on Pacer, and in fact it was indeed Canopy who asked the judge to destroy the documents and Canopy is described as Caldera's "successor-in-interest" in the case. I'm not yet clear how SCO can say they were not a party to this case, entitled Caldera, Inc. v. Microsoft Corporation, when SCO is Caldera, after the name change. Where is the missing piece in the chain there? Or is it the missing pea under the shells? However, that is what many eyeballs are for, so here is the order giving Canopy the right to destroy the files, the first piece in figuring out the mystery. I must say, the SCO-Canopy story has many mysteries.

Caldera had a DR-DOS version, CalderaOpenDOS, and for a while it allowed people to have access to the source code. Then it changed its mind, thinking it might be useful for embedded devices. Eventually, I gather the code ended up in the hands of Lineo, another Canopy Company that was spun off of Caldera, that eventually went out of business:

"DR-DOS began life at Digital Research in the 1980's, where the pioneering technology of CP/M was developed. Lineo has integrated into DR-DOS many of the latest technology devices. However, due to an increasing demand for our Embedix and embedded Linux products, Lineo is no longer developing or supporting the DR-DOS products. The source code for DR-DOS is available, and may be purchased by contacting a member of the Lineo Sales Team (Lineo Sales Contact Form)."

DeviceLogics, Inc. bought Dr-DOS from Canopy Group in October 2002, as you can see in this DeviceLogics press release:

"November 18, 2002—DeviceLogics, Inc. today announced that it has acquired DR-DOS from the Canopy Group, a Utah technology venture group, and has plans to release in Spring of 2003 an 8.0 version of DOS, bringing it up-to-date with core embedded functionality. DeviceLogics also plans to release an updated software development kit (SDK) targeted at embedded developers.

“'Fortune 500 companies continue to depend on DOS-based devices to deliver their day-to-day services. Arguably, DOS remains one of the most stable OS environments and, with our planned enhancements, will continue to be deployed on embedded devices where stability and ease-of-development are king,' said Bryan Sparks, CEO of DeviceLogics, Inc. 'The scrawny, old cow is still giving milk.'

"DR-DOS originated in 1987 at Digital Research, Inc.; was then acquired by Novell in the early 90s; in 1996, DR-DOS was acquired by Caldera, Inc., the same company that sued and settled out-of-court with Microsoft Corporation over DOS-related anti-trust allegations; in 1998, it was spun out to Lineo, Inc. (a Canopy company) where it underwent enhancements targeted at the embedded market and, in October 2002, was acquired by DeviceLogics, Inc."

Bryan Sparks was formerly at Caldera, and in fact he founded it, as Robert X. Cringely pointed out. There is a Caldera DR-DOS page listed on Wayback and from February 1997 to June 2003, but none of the pages would resolve for me. Perhaps they will for you. Here's a bit of the history:

"Since May 5th, 1997 the OpenDOS kernel sources have been made available to the public.  What better documentation you can think of than the source code of a commercial operating system?

"However, there's also some bad news: Until recently (August 1997) we've lived with the impression that Caldera was also willing to publish the source code of all the other OpenDOS software, excluding Personal NetWare and Stacker, of course.  Unfortunately it appears as if they have changed their mind.  It has been said, that there have been 19.000 downloads within the first three days of availability of OpenDOS 7.01, and about 2.000.000 copies sold until September 1997, which was more than being expected, and clearly is in the contrary to some 'trendsetters' saying DOS was dead.  'Dead live longer!'  Apparently, Caldera had to change its strategy in the active Embedded market to not loose control over the other OpenDOS sources, when on the other hand they put great strength and much money in its further development.  Despite all the unconventional and positive methods of marketing, we have to take into account, that Caldera is not a welfare organization, but a profit oriented company.  OpenDOS is not FreeDOS, which is under the GPL.  In my personal opinion, what counts most is to ensure the further development of the operating system, becoming again a powerful advanced alternative in the real world, as much open as can be.  However, there is still hope, that in time they could change their mind again, to let enthusiastic users and programmers also take part in the utilities' further development (at least the traditional ones), which could speed up things significantly."

Here is one unofficial history of the company, that might explain how SCO could say it was not a party to the lawsuit:

"Since this gets confused so often, here's a small summary of the company's history: In fall 1996, Caldera, Inc., the US company, which was founded by Bryan Sparks, and which had developed the Caldera Network Desktop and compiled the OpenLinux distribution, and which was primarily financed by Ray Noorda's Canopy Group, bought all the remaining DRI assets from Novell, Inc. to have a good DOS to be incorporated into their Linux distribution. Soon, a new small development office for DOS related technology was raised in Andover in the United Kingdom centered around some of the original Digital Research/Novell veterans and a few new faces. This subsidiary was named Caldera UK, Ltd. In mid 1998, the mother company split itself into three independant companies: Caldera, Inc. remained the shell company and for the lawsuit Caldera vs. Microsoft, Caldera Systems, Inc., who took over all the Linux related stuff (OpenLinux etc.), and Caldera ThinClients, Inc. for DR-DOS and all embedded systems stuff. In early 1999, Caldera UK, Ltd., was closed again and a few months later Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. renamed itself into Lineo, Inc. now focussing on Linux embedded systems. Soon after the lawsuit was settled in early 2000, the original Caldera, Inc. company ceased to exist, and the other two companies took over/merged with quite a number of other smaller companies in their respective business fields. Actually, I have lost track who all they bought in 2000 and 2001. Anyway, in 2002 (AFAIR) Caldera Systems, Inc. merged with SCO and have recently renamed into SCO, Inc. Also, AFAIK Lineo, Inc. no longer exists as well since fall 2002, but a new small company named DR DOS, Inc. (aka DeviceLogics, Inc.), co-founded by Bryan Sparks, has bought the DR-DOS product line from the Canopy Group, and continues to sell and develop DR-DOS now."

In the trial, Caldera, Inc. wanted some items kept confidential that the judge decided didn't need to be. In an order dated August 13, 1999, 296cv0064500000581.pdf on Pacer, the judge wrote:

"There is a general right of the public to have access to Court records. The Court's order of February 12, 1999, previously referred to, provides full and adequate protection for the public interest. Generally, all pleadings, motions, including those for summary judgment and in limine, should not be submitted under seal. The motions of the parties, in this case, on summary judgment, the responses and supporting documentation, herretofore filed are not to be sealed and the clerk will make such items available. Matters relating to trade secrets, proprietary, confidential, engineering, and commercial information are proper for nondisclosure, except as to materials that will be addressed in open court."

The order goes on to provide the San Jose Mercury News, The Salt Lake Tribune and Bloomberg News with documents from the case under certain limitations. Another interesting detail is that Novell was involved in the lawsuit, and some of the documents in the case were released to them, the portions that they submitted. IBM was subpoenaed too. And you will have noticed that Sun is mentioned in the press report as well. And, sure enough, I found Sun's request to the court for access to the documents so it could grab what it felt it needed for its lawsuit against Microsoft. They had to ask the court for this, because when they asked Canopy Group, Canopy refused to turn anything over without a court order and refused to hold off on destroying the documents, despite Sun's offer to pay all storage expenses on Canopy's behalf, expense being the given reason why Canopy wanted to be able to destroy the documents, according to their application to the court. Here is a bit of the wording from Sun's memorandum in support of it motion to intervene under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 24(b) to modify the Protective Order, to get Canopy to provide the documents to Sun, filed November 13, 2002:

"Caldera settled its suit against Microsoft on January 7, 2000. As part of the settlement, on May 30, 2000, the Court entered a stipulation between the parties modifying the April 1, 1997 protective order ("Protective Order") that had governed the handling of materials gathered during the discovery phase of the case. Under the terms of this stipulated modification, Caldera agreed to preserve all documents produced to it by Microsoft or any third party, rather than return or destroy the documents as had originally be permitted.

"Two years after the settlement agreement was reached and the Protective Order was modified by stipulation, The Canopy Group, Inc. ("Canopy") (successor-in-interest to Caldera) moved this Court for relief from the stipulation. Specifically, Canopy filed a motion asking that, with respect to any document produced pursuant to the Protective Order that it was required to preserve, Canopy be permitted instead to either: (1) return the documents to the individual or entity that produced it; (2) destroy the document; or (3) turn over the document to any interested third party, subject to notice to the party producing the document.

"Canopy served this motion on Microsoft, as well as a whole host of other potentially interested parties. Despite the potential implications for disclosure made explicit in Canopy's motion, not one party came forward to object or even respond: not Microsoft, and not any other party. In the absence of any opposition, the Court proceeded to decide Canopy's motion on October 24, 2002 by signing the proposed order filed by counsel.

"But the proposed order, rather than granting Canopy's request for permission to elect any of the three stated procedures for handling any document produced pursuant to the Protective Order, instead modified the Protective Order to authorize only one procedure: destruction of the documents. As a result, the Protective order now appears to authorize the destruction of documents regardless of any lawful request or subpoena from any collateral party asking that the documents be produced.

"Unfortunately, Sun was not one of the potentially interested parties served with notice of Canopy's motion to modify the Protective Order. As a result, by the time Sun learned of Canopy's motion after the close of business on October 29, 2002, the motion had already been granted. This left Sun with little time to secure any documents it might require for its litigation before Canopy had destroyed the documents pursuant to the Court's order.

"Counsel for Sun called counsel for Canopy the next morning to learn of the condition of the documents subject to the Protective Order. After being informed that Canopy could not confirm the status of any of the documents, Sun then served its subpoena on October 31, 2002, requesting that Caldera make available for inspection 'all documents produced to Caldera in Caldera, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.'

"In response to the subpoena, Canopy asserted that it may not make the documents at issue available to Sun for inspection without an order from this Court modifying the Protective Order to allow such an inspection. Canopy further asserted that in the absence of such an order, it would proceed with its destruction of the documents. Accordingly, Sun has filed the instant application to secure this Court's modification of the Protective Order to permit Canopy to provide the documents to Sun pursuant to Sun's subpoena. Because such a modification is called for under the law of the Tenth Circuit, Sun's application should be granted."

This is such a strange story. As for the detail that Sun relates that Canopy's Motion asks for one thing and the Order grants another, here is one possible explanation, though it is just a guess, albeit an educated one: Normally, when you submit a motion, it's not uncommon that the party submitting the motion gets to do the order as well. You often submit the proposed order with the motion, as you may have noticed some of the parties have done in the current matters. So the order might have been drawn up by Canopy.

And exactly what is IBM looking for from this case that it thinks is relevant to the new SCO v. IBM matter? I'm sure they are not asking for no purpose. And it's a bit uncanny how the entire gang represented in the DR-DOS case are the same folks embroiled now in the SCO case, including Canopy Group.

It is starting to remind me of a town out West I visited once, where it seemed like everybody I met had the same last name. Eventually, I learned, it was because one rather large family settled there and then started marrying away, until practically everybody ended up related to everybody else, one way or another.

It does seem a bit odd, the determination to destroy these documents. Canopy told the court it was a financial burden and that was why they wanted to destroy them. But footnote 32 in this Sun memorandum shows that Sun offered "to assume all of Canopy's reasonable costs in maintaining the documents as of the date of the subpoena." Presumably, turning the documents over to Sun and letting them pay for them would actually be cheaper than paying to have them destroyed. What was in those documents? I don't know, but since Sun's motion was granted and they eventually salvaged some of the documents, made copies of them, and then returned them to be destroyed too, it's clear they know what was in the entire pile of documents. This memorandum is 296cv0064500000677.pdf. And here is the order it refers to, granting Canopy Group the right to destroy the documents in October of 2002, the same month and year that Canopy Group sold Dr-DOS to DeviceLogics. By the way, the AP report says they added up to 37,480 pounds of records, and that it was all eventually turned into toilet paper.

********************************************************

J. Harrison Colter, Esq. (4018)
COLTE JENNINGS
[address, phone, fax]

Attorney for Plaintiff Caldera, Inc.
[represented by its successor-in-iinterest,
The Canopy Group, Inc.]

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF UTAH
CENTRAL DIVISION

___________________________

CALDERA, INC., [represented by its successor
-in-interest, THE CANOPY GROUP, INC.]

Plaintiff,

vs.

MICROSOFT CORPORATION,

Defendants

_________________________

ORDER REGARDING PRESERVATION
OF DOCUMENTS UNDER THE
PROTECTIVE ORDER

Civil No. 2:96 CV 0645DB

Judge Dee V. Benson
Magistrate Judge Ronald N. Boyce

______________________________

Background

1. This case was an antitrust action ("the Action") that was dismissed on January 7, 2002.

2. The parties engaged in extensive discovery and produced numerous documents (the "Documents") pursuant to a Protective Order entered by this Court on April 1, 1997 (the "Protective Order").

3. The Protective Order originally contemplated destruction or return of all confidential documents upon the conclusion of the Action. However, on May 30, 2000, this Court entered a Stipulation Concerning Preservation of Documents under the Protective order (the "Stipulation") ordering the Plaintiff, Caldera, Inc. (and now its successor-in-interest, Canopy, Inc.) to retain the Documents.

4. Canopy has paid for the storage of the Documents since the Action was dismissed. Canopy has no corporate interest in, and perceives no corporate benefit to, retaining the Documents. Canopy cannot be expected to bear the ongoing expenses of storing the documents indefinitely.

5. Canopy now seeks relief from any further obligation to store the Documents.

6. Canopy has demonstrated good cause for a modification of the Stipulation to permit the destruction of the Documents. The Protective Order contemplated ultimate destruction of the Documents, and such destruction was and is foreseeable to all those interested in the retention of the Documents.

7. The parties to the Action (and those third parties who produced documents subject to the Protective Order) relied on the Protective Order, and upon the knowledge that after the Action was completed, the Documents would be returned or destroyed.

ORDER

NOW THEREFORE, good cause having been demonstrated, the Stipulation Concerning Preservation of Documents under the Protective Order (the "Stipulation") entered by this Court on May 30, 2000, is hereby modified to permit Canopy, the successor-in-interest to Caldera, Inc., to destroy the documents being preserved in accordance with the Stipulation.

SO ORDERED this 26 day of October, 2002.

______[signature]__________
United States District Judge

______________________________________________

United States District Court
for the
District of Utah
October 25, 2002

* * CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE OF CLERK * *

RE: 2:96-cv-00645

True and correct copies of the attached were either mailed, faxed or e-mailed by the clerk to the following:
Mr. Michael P O'Brien, Esq.
JONES WALDO HOLBROOK & McCONOUGH
[address]

Mr. Gary F. Bendinger, Esq.
BENDINGER CROCKETT PETERSON & CASEY
[address]

Richard L. Klein, Esq.
WILLKIE FARR & GALLAGHER
[address]

James Chadwick, Esq.
GRAY CARY WARE & FRIDENRICH
[address]

Robert G. Loewy, Esq.
OMELVENY & MYERS
[address]

James S. Jardine, Esq.
[address]

Richard J. Urowsky, Esq.
SULLIVAN & CROMWELL
[address]

William H. Neukom, Esq.
MICROSOFT CORPORATION
[address]

James R. Weiss, Esq.
PRESTON GATES ELLIS & ROUVELAS MEEDS
[address]

Michael H. Steinberg, Esq.
SULLIVAN & CROMWELL
[address]

Mr. Max D Wheeler, Esq.
SNOW CHRISTENSEN & MARTINEAU
[address]

Stephen D. Susman, Esq.
SUSMAN GODFREY LLP
[address]

Ralph H. Palumbo, Esq.
SUMMIT LAW GROUP
[address]

Parker C. Folse III, Esq.
SUSMAN GODFREY LLP
[address]

J. Harrison Colter, Esq.
[address]


  


Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here | 61 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: RK on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:34 AM EST
I might have got this totally wrong, but I thought that Caldera Inc spun off
Caldera Systems which later renamed to Caldera International and then to The SCO
Group. Caldera Inc meanwhile continued to hold the DR DOS rights and carried out
the law suit against Microsoft.

Hence, Caldera Inc which was a party to the suit was not the company which
became The SCO Group and The SCO GRoup's statement that they were not a party to
the suit themselves is strictly true. They don't deny that Canopy was involved
through another company.

Any corrections would be welcome.

[ Reply to This | # ]

PJ, check your facts before jumping to conclusions
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:35 AM EST
Caldera, Inc. is NOT Caldera Systems alias Caldera International alias The SCO
Group.

Caldera was split into three companies: Caldera Systems (a Linux business run by
Ransom Love), and an embedded systems company quickly renamed Lineo, were both
spun off from the original "Caldera Inc.", leaving it an empty shell
with no employees, run by Bryan Sparks (also CEO of Lineo). Caldera Inc.
received the Microsoft suit settlement money on behalf of Canopy, then faded
away. Caldera Systems went on to have an IPO in order to fund its operations.
Shortly thereafter it switched corporate identity again to "Caldera
International".

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT: DOS, DOS, who has the DOS?
Authored by: Steve Martin on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:36 AM EST

In mid 1998, the mother company split itself into three independant companies: Caldera, Inc. remained the shell company and for the lawsuit Caldera vs. Microsoft, Caldera Systems, Inc., who took over all the Linux related stuff (OpenLinux etc.), and Caldera ThinClients, Inc. for DR-DOS and all embedded systems stuff.

As always, IANAL, so perhaps I'm just not understanding, but this stinks a bit to my uneducated nose. How could Caldera Inc. (the "mother company") have split itself into three independent companies during this suit, with one company (Caldera Inc.) continuing in the suit but another (Caldera ThinClients Inc.) owning the very software over which the suit was filed with Microsoft? Looks like the standing to continue the suit would have gone with Caldera ThinClients. How could the shell company have standing to pursue the lawsuit?

---
"When I say something, I put my name next to it." -- Isaac Jaffee, "Sports Night"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Destroying records.
Authored by: tintak on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:44 AM EST
Is it usual to destroy paperwork that had once been evidence, so soon after a
court case ends? I have to keep my paperwork relating to UK tax for six years.
Does this destruction seem odd to anybody else, or is it the usual practice in
the US?

---
'it is literally impossible' for SCO to itself provide
direct proof' Mark J. Heise 02/06/04

[ Reply to This | # ]

Who's on first ... ?
Authored by: publius_REX on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 07:44 AM EST
Perhaps, a more useful way to track what company was
really named 'what' during this timeframe is to follow the
small group of principals that seem to be running
everything.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: legal insanity on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 08:08 AM EST
And I thought I was the insane one.let me sum it up like this,
WHATEVER.

---
Insanity Pleadings is the only Sensible Defense

[ Reply to This | # ]

Contrast: Canopy Group with IBM
Authored by: tgf on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:01 AM EST
As we all know, one of the Canopy Group of
companies is suing IBM, and keep mentioning
Sequent which was taken over and absorbed by IBM.
Similarly, Novell absorbed USL, and I've lost
track of how many companies Microsoft has
sub-sumed.

Contrast this to the Canopy Group shell game,
which is playing the takeover game in a different
way.

SCOG asks IBM for Sequent documents and gets them,
whilst IBM asks SCOG for the like, and they just
reply that it's not them. It's not just these
documents, but the UCB/BSDi vs USL settlement too.

So, how much of this is obfuscation or other
shennanigans in a deliberate set-up to avoid such
large probes? It's no wonder IBM is trying to get
Canopy itself involved in the SCO vs IBM lawsuit.

Tim

---
Oxymoron of the day:
Trusted Computing

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:10 AM EST
I am glad this is coming out into the light of public
scrutiny. I thought something smelled when I heard of this
happening and now I still think something smells. The
timing of all these seemingly separate events bears a much
deeper look.
If one takes a look at the info surrounding the various
cases involving Microsoft there is always some sort of
effort to hide the results from public view.
Drag them, kicking and screaming, into the light.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Slightly OT : Novell posts profit
Authored by: PeteS on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 11:30 AM EST
Novell reversed a loss trend from the equivalant quarter last year, according to this report

Whether it was related to Linux sales (or systems based thereon) is not mentioned.

---
Today's subliminal thought is:

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: greg_T_hill on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:12 PM EST
I was a Caldera user at the time of the DR-DOS case and
the IPO. I followed their news casually at the time, i.e.
the PR on their website. The impression given was very
much that this Linux company had taken on MicroSoft and
won a huge settlement. This company offered enterprise
computing specializing in server/thin client systems
( like the famous Largo, FL setup) which have the
advantage of centralized management with low cost
desktops. And this company was going to raise big bucks
with an IPO in _addition_ to the capital from the
settlement. They really seemed like a top of the line
company, and the SCO aquisition just added to that. They
got a lot of flack from the community for the per seat
licensing plan, but were none the less good citizens
participating in development, submitting fixes for
numerous packages besides the kernel. Out of Caldera,
SuSE, and Red Hat, I would have picked Caldera to come out
on top. Their amazing downhill slide and self mutilation
by divesting the DR-DOS, embedded systems and thin
clients, and abandonment of their own product for United
Linux(SuSE) only makes sense if viewed from Canopy's point
of view.

IBM may be able to prove that SCO is nothing more than a
front for Canopy's financial shell games and that Darl
McBride is little more than a spokesmodel for Canopy &
Friends.

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • Well Said!! - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 05:48 PM EST
Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: richardpitt on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:16 PM EST
Note that a spin-off from Caldera called Caldera Thin Clients - eventually a
completely separate company (with Canopy being a large shareholder) ended up
being called Lineo. It is this company that actually won the DrDOS suit with M$.
When Lineo collapsed, Canopy seems to have ended up with the documents through
holding the paper on some financing.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Reasons for the different companies...
Authored by: kuwan on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 12:25 PM EST
PJ, I used to work with the former CFO of Caldera International (now the SCO
group) and he was deeply involved with all of this. I might add that he left
Caldera to be CFO of my former company well before McBride et al took over
and destroyed SCO. He also could not understand their current actions and
was just as disturbed as the rest of us.

Anyway, here's the _Reason_ why there were the different companies, at least
this is what I heard from him. I'm not sure the names of each of the
companies but the one that carried out the lawsuit vs. Microsoft (apparently
Caldera Inc.) was a private company (i.e. non-public, no IPO, didn't need to
report public earnings, etc.). Because the company was private it did not
need to disclose the amount of the settlement with Microsoft. Because of this
the amount of the settlement has never been disclosed, there have been
reports about how much the settlement was for (to the tune of $200 to $300
million), but I believe that they were only estimates. The real settlement
could have been for much more. Shortly after the settlement the private
company took the money and dissolved. Then (either before, after or during
the lawsuit, I'm not sure of the timeline) a new company was created that
eventually became public and turned into Caldera International which
eventually became the SCO that we all know and love, and one was created to
continue selling DR-DOS which eventually became Lineo.

An interesting note: When I was talking with him about SCO's current mess,
his response was something like this: "I don't know what Ray thinks he is

doing." and "I think that Ray may have gotten his feet wet with the
Microsoft
settlement and wanted to do it again." This was interesting to me because
it
implied that Ray Noorda, of Canopy was the one really calling the shots, not
McBride or even Ralph Yarro.

Lastly, and from a different source, the DR-DOS lawsuit against Microsoft
really was a valid lawsuit, unlike the current and meritless SCO vs. IBM.
Apparently Microsoft had deliberately put code into an early version of
Windows (maybe even a beta version) that would detect to see if you were
running DR-DOS and not MS-DOS. If it had detected that you were running
DR-DOS it would display an error message that Windows could not run on
DR-DOS. This was not true however, Windows could run on DR-DOS but
Microsoft of course wanted you to be running MS-DOS. Therefore it was
anti-competitive behavior that severely harmed DR-DOS's business and
justified the settlement. Microsoft most likely would have lost the lawsuit if

they did not settle.

I hope this helps to understand the "funny business" surrounding the
different Caldera companies.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: sbungay on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:35 PM EST
As I recall, shortly after MS purchased a licence or some such from SCO, a
request was made by to the courts (by SCOG Iif I recall correctly) to destroy
the documents relating to the Caldera win over MS in the DR DOS case (it was
reported on 'the Register.co.uk'). Shortly after that request was made SCO
started rattling the legal sabre. It all looked to me at the time as if they
were trying to erase history before embarking on a campaign of some kind, and I
recall discussing this with several associates. It was around this time too that
I heard of Groklaw, I think PJ had just started her blog and she had been
interviewed, the site was moved from it's original spot to where it was when the
url was Groklaw.com. Does this timeline ring true with anyone else?

---
Programmer: A red eyed mumbling mamal that converses with inanimate objects.

IANAL IAAP

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PJ - Typo
Authored by: the_flatlander on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 01:54 PM EST
Not that anyone cares...
" And it's a bit uncanny how the entire gang represented in the DR-DOSS
case"

DR-DOSS s/b DR-DOS.

Please just crush this post.

The Flatlander

Man, oh man. All the litigious b*******s out there must live in constant fear
that PJ will notice *them*.

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  • PJ - Typos - Authored by: tgf on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 08:21 PM EST
Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 06:20 PM EST
Lineo didn't exactly go out of business. It was purchased by Metrowerks, a
subsidiary of Motorola in December '02.

http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3637903027.html

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IBM should be able to destroy SCO on this alone
Authored by: Walter Dnes on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 06:55 PM EST
Lemme get this straight

1) SCO sues IBM in March, 2003 (see IBM Timeline
http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20031016162215566 )

2) SCO shredded the MS lawsuit papers beginning early May 2003 (see
http://tv.ksl.com/index.php?nid=5&sid=29450 )

I hope somebody at IBM does something with this.

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Notes about the source code for DR-DOS
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, February 28 2004 @ 10:51 PM EST

Sometime between 10/05/01 and 4/10/02 (judging from file dates in my directory), I snipped the following from the file ftp://ftp.lineo.com/drdos/info/fa q.sgml:

"The source code for the kernel components of DR-DOS is available now, at http://www.caldera.com/dos/html /dload.htm. This is a form you will need to fill out in order to obtain the code from Caldera. After filling out the form, you will be able to download the binaries or source code.

"The kernel components available now are IBMBIO, IBMDOS and COMMAND.COM. Additional source code will be made available as it is readied for public use.

"This first release of DR-DOS fulfills Caldera's promise to make the base distribution of DOS that it acquired from Novell available.

I would certainly like to know more about the "promise" eluded to in the third quote. I couldn't find out any more at the time, unfortunately. But having DR-DOS freely available in a clean way would be very nice, I think. It, of course, isn't terribly marketable today in mainstream PC land, but it is a useful base for simple utilities such as disk partitioning, binary disk editing, and such, and if such a suitable base were available, writing such utilities on this base would be more generally useful. (FreeDOS might be okay, but one couldn't really tell that much about it's stability status last time I looked at the freedos web site. And it is not nearly as MS-DOS compatible as DR-DOS is.)

If the "promise" indicated was to Novell, as seems likely, I think it would be nice if Novell investigated the nature of the promise, and insisted that it be carried out in it's entirety, if it hasn't, even at this late date. (Even if nothing else, it would be worth hassling "SCO" over this just for the enjoyment of doing so. :) ) Given such a promise, it is also interesting to speculate exactly what "rights" are supposedly being sold as DR- DOS gets passed from company to company.

At the time I saw this, I think that the associated link was dead, and the source code was apparently unavailable. Also, as I recall, the source code couldn't be passed around -- you had to get your own copy from Lineo.

Wally Bass

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"However, that is what many eyeballs are for."
Authored by: LvilleDebugger on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 02:42 PM EST
This is up there with Grace Hopper's "Dare and Do," "It is
sometimes easier to ask forgiveness than permission", and Ada Lovelace's
objection to Artificial Intelligence ca. 1836
(http://www.abelard.org/turpap/turpap.htm#lady_lovelaces_objection).

PJ's book is gonna be so good. Autograph tour, puh-lease! Hackers in each city
are hereby ordered to place 3 loud-and-frisky musical bands on standby for these
events, with full catering and FREE BEER!!! Heh. :)

Not to jinx the case or nuthin'.

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Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, February 29 2004 @ 10:49 PM EST
This is not strange. Microsoft had intentionally modified Windows 3.1 and
Windows 95 not to load when it detected DR-DOS. The documents contained source
code and emails that proved that Microsoft set out to crush DR-DOS with MALICE.
On top of that, Microsoft outright stole Stacker.

On a side note. DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) sued Microsoft back in the
NT 3.1 days. Dave Cutler and other programmers that left DEC to join Microsoft,
were caught with actual source code floppy diskettes to Operating System
software that was taken by them when they left DEC. This evidence was presented
in a court of law, i.e., that DEC had showed that the NT kernel came from DEC.
Of course it wasn't an actual copy, it was ported to the x86. Microsoft quickly
settled out of court and had the case sealed forever.

Microsoft is just covering their tracks and trying to fool the public that they
have all this innovation. When actually MS has stolen, sabatoged, bought,
bribed, strong armed the entire personal computer industry.

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  • Hmmm - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 01:25 AM EST
    • Hmmm - Authored by: grouch on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 04:37 AM EST
Follow the Money: Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 12:09 PM EST
A few points from a participant:
There were, in fact, three companies: Caldera, Inc. did the lawsuit with Microsoft; Caldera Systems became SCO, and Caldera Thin Clients became Lineo.

Caldera, Inc. was absorbed into Canopy Group in March 2000 right after the Microsoft lawsuit was settled, with a roomful of lawyers and accountants trying to make certain everything was done correctly to achieve the best result for tax/business planning purposes. My calculations put the Caldera v Microsoft settlement at around $450 million.

Shareholders and option holders in Caldera, Inc. (including a number of employees of Caldera Systems and Caldera Thin Clients), each received either $9 per share plus stock in Lineo, or else $11 per share and no Lineo. (Turns out the latter would have been the better choice.) Shareholders were not told the amount of the settlement.

A portion of the settlement money was held back (not distributed to shareholders) to cover 1) potential unforeseen tax liabilities and 2) a pending lawsuit with Novell.

Novell apparently had a right to a portion of the Microsoft settlement money. The dispute was over whether the percentage Novell received should be based on the settlement before or after attorney fees were paid. (The difference was $millions.) A Canopy v. Novell case was filed under seal in a Utah County court. ("Under seal" meaning no one could see any document or even find out the status or dates of hearings.) Novell apparently won. No former shareholder of Caldera, Inc. was ever informed of the status or outcome of the litigation, or the status of the money that was held out for taxes/etc. No accounting, just silence.

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Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, March 01 2004 @ 07:48 PM EST
From what I can remember "All Documents Are VALID for 3 to 5 years".
That means from Jan. 7, 2002 the document must be maintain until Jan. 7, 2005.


So, SCO can be sued for destorying legal documents. They are just digging a
deeper and deeper hole for themselves. They need to come clean and stop playing
with the legal system.

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