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, w ...

- 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 communicat ...

-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 i ...

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 ...

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

(CND) and later create a

distribution named OpenLinux (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 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. Red Hat published the first non-beta rele ...

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

-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 Gr ...

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

. An example was that certain beta versions of Windows 3.1 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 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 ...

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

) 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 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 u ...

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. supported the Linux-port of Star Division's

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 OpenLinux 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-D ...

Ltd. () was incorporated on 20 September 1996 to continue the development of the DR-DOS operating system in a converted barn () at the periphery of Andover, 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 7.03 and DR-WebSpyder. 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 (with LST now standing for ''Linux System Technology'') in

Erlangen Erlangen (; East Franconian: ''Erlang'', Bavarian: ''Erlanga'') is a Middle Franconian city in Bavaria, Germany. It is the seat of the administrative district Erlangen-Höchstadt (former administrative district Erlangen), and with 116,062 inhab ...

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

, 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 Caldera v. Microsoft 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 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 and Hitachi, 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 List of cities in Japan, largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, ...

, 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.

Caldera UK, Caldera Thin Clients, Lineo, and Embedix

Caldera Thin Clients, 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 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 applicatio ...

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 to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general ...

(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' origina ...

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

Motorola Motorola, Inc. () was an American 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 public companies, Motorol ...

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 software as well as other solutions dedicated to digital printers and to the Digital Printing industry. The company was taken over by Dover in 2017.

References

(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)