Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

- and

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicatio ...

-based

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...

products.

Caldera

Caldera, Inc. was a

Canopy Canopy may refer to: Plants * Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests) * Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes Religion and ceremonies * Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...

-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 January 1995 by former

Novell Novell, Inc. was an American software and services company headquartered in Provo, Utah, that existed from 1980 until 2014. Its most significant product was the multi-platform network operating system known as Novell NetWare. Under the lead ...

employees Bryan Wayne Sparks, Ransom H. Love and others to develop the

Caldera Network Desktop Caldera OpenLinux (COL) is a defunct Linux distribution. Caldera originally introduced it in 1997 based on the German LST Power Linux distribution, and then taken over and further developed by Caldera Systems (now SCO Group) since 1998. A suc ...

(CND) and later create a

distribution named

OpenLinux Caldera OpenLinux (COL) is a defunct Linux distribution. Caldera originally introduced it in 1997 based on the German LST Power Linux distribution, and then taken over and further developed by Caldera Systems (now SCO Group) since 1998. A suc ...

(COL). The company was originally based in Provo and later in

Orem Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the northern part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is approximately south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah M ...

, Utah, USA. Their first product in 1995 was Caldera Network Desktop, which was based on

Red Hat Linux Red Hat Linux was a widely used Commercial software, commercial Open-source software, open-source Linux distribution created by Red Hat until its discontinuation in 2004. Early releases of Red Hat Linux were called Red Hat Commercial Linux. R ...

and Novell's Corsair Internet Desktop. It also included LISA (Linux Installation and System Administration), which had been developed by the German

Linux Support Team Caldera OpenLinux (COL) is a defunct Linux distribution. Caldera originally introduced it in 1997 based on the German LST Power Linux distribution, and then taken over and further developed by Caldera Systems (now SCO Group) since 1998. A su ...

(LST) for their own Linux distribution. The newer OpenLinux distribution was based on

LST Power Linux LST may refer to: Education * Licentiate of Sacred Theology * Liston College * London School of Theology Organizations * Law School Transparency * Linux Support Team, a defunct German Linux distributor (LST Linux, Power Linux) since 1993 * ...

, a

Slackware Slackware is a Linux distribution created by Patrick Volkerding in 1993. Originally based on Softlanding Linux System, Slackware has been the basis for many other Linux distributions, most notably the first versions of SUSE Linux distributions ...

-derived distribution that had been maintained by LST since 1993 and the first to come with a Linux 2.0 kernel. Looking for a

operating system to bundle with their OpenLinux distribution, Caldera, backed up by The Canopy Group as their largest investor, acquired

Novell DOS DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

7 and other

Digital Research Digital Research, Inc. (DR or DRI) was a company created by Gary Kildall to market and develop his CP/M operating system and related 8-bit, 16-bit and 32-bit systems like MP/M, Concurrent DOS, FlexOS, Multiuser DOS, DOS Plus, DR DOS and ...

assets from Novell on 23 July 1996. The deal consisted of a direct payment of as well as percentual royalties for any revenues derived from DR-DOS to Novell. Caldera filed the

Caldera v. Microsoft Microsoft has been involved in numerous high-profile legal matters that involved litigation over the history of the company, including cases against the United States, the European Union, and competitors. Governmental In its 2008 annual report, Mi ...

antitrust lawsuit the same day. This lawsuit related to Caldera's claims of

monopolization In United States antitrust law, monopolization is illegal monopoly behavior. The main categories of prohibited behavior include exclusive dealing, price discrimination, refusing to supply an essential facility, product tying and predatory pricing ...

, illegal tying,

exclusive dealing In Economics and Law, exclusive dealing arises when a supplier entails the buyer by placing limitations on the rights of the buyer to choose what, who and where they deal. This is against the law in most countries which include the USA, Austra ...

, and

tortious interference Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing e ...

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. An example was that certain beta versions of

Windows 3.1 Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows 3 ...

produced technically groundless "non-fatal" fake error messages when installing and running them on DR DOS 6.0 due to a check known as

AARD code The AARD code was a segment of code in a beta release of Microsoft Windows 3.1 that would determine whether Windows was running on MS-DOS or PC DOS, rather than a competing workalike such as DR-DOS, and would result in a cryptic error messag ...

in order to create

fear, uncertainty and doubt Fear, uncertainty and doubt (often shortened to FUD) is a propaganda tactic used in sales, marketing, public relations, politics, polling and cults. FUD is generally a strategy to influence perception by disseminating negative and dubious or fal ...

(FUD) and destroy DR DOS' reputation. Another example was bundling and

artificially tying Tying (informally, product tying) is the practice of selling one product or service as a mandatory addition to the purchase of a different product or service. In legal terms, a ''tying sale'' makes the sale of one Good (economics), good (the ''tyi ...

MS-DOS 7 and Windows 4 into a single product (

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturin ...

) in order to eliminate competition. Caldera later demonstrated that it would have been beneficial for DOS and Windows users to have a choice between MS-DOS and DR-DOS feature-wise, and that it was technically possible to run Windows 4 on DR-DOS 7 simply by faking some new, unnecessarily complex but functionally non-essential internal interfaces through

WinGlue DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

. See Microsoft litigation#Caldera v Microsoft. Since Digital Research's

CP/M CP/M, originally standing for Control Program/Monitor and later Control Program for Microcomputers, is a mass-market operating system created in 1974 for Intel 8080/ 85-based microcomputers by Gary Kildall of Digital Research, Inc. Initial ...

and

MP/M MP/M (Multi-Programming Monitor Control Program) is a discontinued multi-user version of the CP/M operating system, created by Digital Research developer Tom Rolander in 1979. It allowed multiple users to connect to a single computer, each us ...

had no commercial value for Caldera, they offered various binaries and sources for download on their site and allowed the redistribution and modification of more collected CP/M files through Tim Olmstead's independent "The Unofficial CP/M Web site" since 1997, for as long as they did not contain any DOS technology.

Caldera, Inc. Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products. Caldera Caldera, Inc. was a Canopy-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 January 1995 by f ...

supported the Linux-port of

Star Division The German software company Star Division (also written Star-Division) was founded in 1985 by the 16-year-old Marco Börries in Lüneburg as a garage company. After a neighbour denounced the operation of a business in a residential area to the ...

StarOffice 3.1 StarOffice is a discontinued proprietary software, proprietary office suite, intended to compete with the marketing-leading Microsoft Office. It served as the basis for open-source suites OpenOffice.org and LibreOffice. StarOffice supported the ...

with ca. in order to offer the product with their

distribution in 1997. While active, Caldera, Inc. created a number of subsidiaries:

Caldera UK

Under the direction of Roger Alan Gross as General Manager of Caldera's Digital Research Systems Group (DSG) the UK-based development center

Caldera UK DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-DO ...

Ltd. () was incorporated on 20 September 1996 to continue the development of the

DR-DOS DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

operating system in a converted barn () at the periphery of

Andover Andover may refer to: Places Australia * Andover, Tasmania Canada * Andover Parish, New Brunswick * Perth-Andover, New Brunswick United Kingdom * Andover, Hampshire, England ** RAF Andover, a former Royal Air Force station United States * Ando ...

, Hampshire, UK. Caldera UK developed various DOS-based products including

OpenDOS 7.01 DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

(COD),

DR-DOS 7.02 DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

DR-DOS 7.03 DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

and

DR-WebSpyder DR-WebSpyder is a DOS web browser, mail client and operating system runtime environment that was developed by Caldera UK in 1997. It was based on the DR-DOS operating system and networking components from Novell as well as the Arachne web brow ...

. Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. closed the Caldera UK Ltd. development office in February 1999 soon after the release of DR-DOS 7.03, thereby effectively stopping any DOS development.

Caldera Deutschland

Caldera, Inc. incorporated the German Linux Support Team's (LST) configuration manager LISA into Caldera's Network Desktop in 1995. In 1996 Linux Support Team grew into Stefan Probst's and Ralf Flaxa's company

LST Software GmbH Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products. Caldera Caldera, Inc. was a Canopy Group, Canopy-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 Jan ...

(with LST now standing for ''Linux System Technology'') in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian German, East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian language, Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative d ...

, Germany. This led to a collaboration with Caldera to develop OpenLinux. LST Software became Caldera's German development center

Caldera Deutschland Caldera was a US-based software company founded in 1994 to develop Linux- and DOS-based operating system products. Caldera Caldera, Inc. was a Canopy-funded software company founded in October 1994 and incorporated on 25 January 1995 by f ...

GmbH for Linux-based technologies since May 1997. Caldera Deutschland continued to develop Linux system software for Caldera's Linux-branch until it was closed at the end of 2001 by its US-based mother-house.

Caldera Taiwan

On 1 June 1998, Caldera, Inc. opened a sales office for its DOS-based products in

Taipei Taipei (), officially Taipei City, is the capital and a special municipality of the Republic of China (Taiwan). Located in Northern Taiwan, Taipei City is an enclave of the municipality of New Taipei City that sits about southwest of the n ...

, Taiwan, run by Irrana and Henry Huang.

Caldera, Caldera Systems and Caldera Thin Clients

On 2 September 1998, Caldera, Inc. announced the creation of two Utah-based wholly owned subsidiaries, Caldera Systems, Inc. and Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., in order to split up tasks and directions. Under Sparks' lead, the shell company Caldera, Inc. remained responsible for the

lawsuit. Microsoft lawyers tried repeatedly to have the case dismissed but without success. On 7 January 2000, immediately after the completion of the pre-trial deposition stage (where the parties list the evidence they intend to present), Microsoft settled out-of-court for an undisclosed sum, which in 2009 was revealed to be . Caldera, Inc. ceased to exist soon after.

Caldera Systems, Caldera Holdings, Caldera International, Caldera K.K., and The SCO Group

Caldera Systems, Inc. Caldera International, Inc., earlier Caldera Systems, was an American software company that existed from 1998 to 2002 and developed and sold Linux- and Unix-based operating system products. Caldera Systems was created in August 1998 as a spinoff ...

(CSI), headed by Love as President and CEO since its incorporation in

Orem, Utah Orem is a city in Utah County, Utah, United States, in the northern part of the state. It is adjacent to Provo, Lindon, and Vineyard and is approximately south of Salt Lake City. Orem is one of the principal cities of the Provo-Orem, Utah Me ...

, on 21 August 1998, targeted the Linux-based software business including OpenLinux, with Caldera Deutschland as their German Linux development center. The company reincorporated in Delaware on 2 March 2000 and completed an

IPO An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investment ...

of its common stock as CALD. On the first day of trading Caldera's shares doubled in value, briefly touching , and by the end of the first day the company had a market capitalisation of . However, at a time when technology IPOs were attracting extremely high valuations, Caldera Systems's performance was generally perceived as a disappointment. The company reorganized in August 2000 and became Caldera International, Inc. (CII) in March 2001. In May 2001, Caldera International, with investments of

Fujitsu is a Japanese multinational information and communications technology equipment and services corporation, established in 1935 and headquartered in Tokyo. Fujitsu is the world's sixth-largest IT services provider by annual revenue, and the la ...

and

Hitachi () is a Japanese multinational corporation, multinational Conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. It is the parent company of the Hitachi Group (''Hitachi Gurūpu'') and had formed part of the Ni ...

, opened the Caldera K.K. () subsidiary, directed by Makoto Asoh, in

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

, Japan. In August 2002, Caldera International renamed itself into

The SCO Group The SCO Group (often referred to SCO and later called The TSG Group) was an American software company in existence from 2002 to 2012 that became known for owning Unix operating system assets that had belonged to the Santa Cruz Operation (the o ...

, Inc. under the lead of

Darl McBride Darl Charles McBride (born 1959) is an entrepreneur and CEO of Shout TV Inc. McBride is known as the former CEO of The SCO Group. On March 7, 2003, during McBride's tenure as CEO of the company, The SCO Group initiated litigation ('' SCO v. IBM' ...

Caldera UK, Caldera Thin Clients, Lineo, and Embedix

Caldera Thin Clients Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999. History Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original ...

, Inc. (CTC), incorporated in August 1998 and originally led by Gross as President and CEO, instead developed

- and Linux-based thin clients and solutions for embedded systems. Originally located in Orem and later in Lindon, it was meant to become the US-based "parent" company for Caldera UK Ltd. When Gross resigned and Caldera UK Ltd. was disbanded in February 1999, and when the attempt to relocate the DR-DOS development into the US failed, Caldera Thin Clients, under the new lead of Sparks, soon refocused on Linux. In April 1999, Caldera Thin Clients released the no longer needed sources to

GEM A gemstone (also called a fine gem, jewel, precious stone, or semiprecious stone) is a piece of mineral crystal which, in cut and polished form, is used to make jewelry or other adornments. However, certain rocks (such as lapis lazuli, opal, a ...

and

ViewMAX ViewMAX is a CUA-compliant file manager supplied with DR DOS versions 5.0 and 6.0. It is based on a cut-down runtime version of Digital Research's GEM/3 graphical user interface modified to run only a single statically built application ...

under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

(GPL). On 20 July 1999, Caldera Thin Clients was renamed into

Lineo Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999. History Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original ...

, Inc. Lineo licensed a stripped down OpenLinux distribution from Caldera Systems and named it

Embedix Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999. History Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original ...

. They continued to maintain the former Caldera Thin Clients sales office in Taipei in 1999. In January 2000, Lineo reincorporated in Delaware. In October 2001, Lineo refreshed and expanded the free CP/M redistribution license after Olmstead's death. By July 2002, the company had reformed as

, Inc. under the lead of Matthew R. Harris, formerly a Summit Law attorney for Caldera, Inc. Embedix ceased to exist later that year. Some DR-DOS assets fell to the Canopy Group and were acquired by DRDOS, Inc. aka

DeviceLogics DeviceLogics was a company in Lindon, Utah, USA, founded in November 2002. Originally doing business mostly under the DeviceLogics name, the company was incorporated as DRDOS, Inc. for legal reasons. The DeviceLogics name was later dropped. Br ...

in 2002. Key parts of the Linux-based Embedix assets were acquired by

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American Multinational corporation, multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, United States. After having lost $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009, the company split into two independent p ...

Metrowerks Metrowerks was a company that developed software development tools for various desktop, handheld, embedded, and gaming platforms. Its flagship product, CodeWarrior, comprised an IDE, compilers, linkers, debuggers, libraries, and related tools. I ...

on 17 December 2002.

Caldera Graphics

Totally unrelated to the above mentioned US-based Caldera companies, there is also a French software company named Caldera, specialized in imaging software for wide format digital printing. In order to better distinguish it from the US-based companies, the French company was also referred to under the name Caldera Graphics SAS for several years. Created in 1991, it has since got back its Caldera trademark from the SCO Group, as well as the website since 2010. This French company produces

RIP Rest in peace (RIP), a phrase from the Latin (), is sometimes used in traditional Christian services and prayers, such as in the Catholic, Lutheran, Anglican, and Methodist denominations, to wish the soul of a decedent eternal rest and peace. ...

software as well as other solutions dedicated to digital printers and to the Digital Printing industry. The company was taken over by

Dover Dover () is a town and major ferry port in Kent, South East England. It faces France across the Strait of Dover, the narrowest part of the English Channel at from Cap Gris Nez in France. It lies south-east of Canterbury and east of Maidstone ...

in 2017.

References

External links

* Caldera, Inc. (archived web site caldera.com fro
1996-10-18
t
1999-04-30
*

Caldera UK Ltd. DR-DOS (written as DR DOS, without a hyphen, in versions up to and including 6.0) is a disk operating system for IBM PC compatibles. Upon its introduction in 1988, it was the first DOS attempting to be compatible with IBM PC DOS and MS-D ...

(archived web site caldera.co.uk fro
1997-12-21
t
1999-10-12
* Caldera Thin Clients, Inc. (archived web site calderathin.com fro

t

and

Lineo, Inc. Lineo was a thin client and embedded systems company spun out of Caldera Thin Clients by 20 July 1999. History Caldera Thin Clients, Inc., had been created as a subsidiary of Caldera, Inc., on 2 September 1998. Caldera Thin Clients' original ...

(archived web site calderathin.com fro
1999-10-12
t

lineo.com fro
2000-05-10
t
2003-03-20
and embedix.com fro
2002-06-03
t
2003-02-20
*

(archived web site calderasystems.com fro
1999-01-17
t

and caldera.com fro
2000-02-29
t
2000-12-17
, Caldera Holdings (archived web site caldera.com fro
2001-01-18
t
2001-03-02
, Caldera International, Inc. (archived web site caldera.com fro
2001-03-30
t
2002-08-25
and

(archived web site caldera.com fro
2002-09-14
t
2004-09-01
and sco.com fro
2001-05-08
* LST Software GmbH (archived web site lst.de fro
1997-01-11
t
1997-12-11
, Caldera Deutschland GmbH (archived web site lst.de fro
1998-12-01
t
2000-01-02
and caldera.de fro
2000-04-13
to 2001) and LST - Verein zur Förderung freier Software (archived web site lst.de fro
2001-03-31
* Caldera Graphics (archived web site caldera.fr fro
1996-12-23
t
2007-03-04
caldera.eu fro
2007-03-27
t
2011-06-14
and caldera.com fro
2011-07-17
t
2012-01-07
and fro
2012-05-02
!-- t
2018-03-08
-->) {{DEFAULTSORT:Caldera 1994 establishments in Utah 2002 disestablishments in Utah Defunct software companies of the United States American companies established in 1994 American companies disestablished in 2002 Defunct companies based in Utah Linux companies Software companies established in 1994 Software companies disestablished in 2002 de:Caldera (Unternehmen)