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Unix System Laboratories (USL), sometimes written UNIX System Laboratories to follow relevant trademark guidelines of the time, was an American software laboratory and product development company that existed from 1989 through 1993. At first wholly, and then majority, owned by
AT&T AT&T Inc. is an American multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered at Whitacre Tower in Downtown Dallas, Texas. It is the world's largest telecommunications company by revenue and the third largest provider of mobile ...
, it was responsible for the development and maintenance of one of the main branches of the
Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, ...
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...
, the UNIX System V Release 4 source code product. Through
Univel Univel, Inc. was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories (USL) that was formed in December 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system, which was released in 1992 as UnixWare 1.0. Univel existed ...
, a partnership with
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 le ...
, it was also responsible for the development and production of the UnixWare packaged operating system for Intel architecture. In addition it developed
Tuxedo Black tie is a semi-formal Western dress code for evening events, originating in British and American conventions for attire in the 19th century. In British English, the dress code is often referred to synecdochically by its principal element ...
, a transaction processing monitor, and was responsible for certain products related to the C++ programming language. USL was based in
Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern-central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United State ...
, and its CEOs were Larry Dooling followed by
Roel Pieper Roland "Roel" Pieper (born 1956, Vlaardingen, Netherlands) is a Dutch IT-entrepreneur. Early life and education Pieper was born (April 13, 1956) in Vlaardingen, son of an engineer at a car manufacturer. His father died when Pieper was 20, and on ...
. Created from earlier AT&T entities, USL was, as industry writer Christopher Negus has observed, the culmination of AT&T's long involvement in Unix, "a jewel that couldn't quite find a home or a way to make a profit." USL was sold to Novell in 1993.


Origins as subsidiary of AT&T

AT&T announced the creation of the UNIX Software Operation (USO) – a separate and distinct AT&T business unit responsible for the development, marketing, and licensing of UNIX System V software – in January 1989. This was done, as a subsequent press release stated, "in order to separate AT&T's UNIX System source code business from its computer systems business," the latter a reference to
AT&T Computer Systems AT&T Computer Systems is the generic name for American Telephone & Telegraph's unsuccessful attempt to compete in the computer business. In return for divesting the local Bell Operating Companies (Baby Bells), AT&T was allowed to have an unregulat ...
. USO included the AT&T Data Systems Group organizations responsible for UNIX product planning and management, licensing, and marketing.
Peter J. Weinberger Peter Jay Weinberger (born August 6, 1942) is a computer scientist best known for his early work at Bell Labs. He now works at Google. Weinberger was an undergraduate at Swarthmore College, graduating in 1964. He received his PhD in mathemati ...
was named chief scientist of USO while also retaining his job in the computing science research center at
Bell Labs Nokia Bell Labs, originally named Bell Telephone Laboratories (1925–1984), then AT&T Bell Laboratories (1984–1996) and Bell Labs Innovations (1996–2007), is an American industrial research and scientific development company owned by mul ...
; no other Bell Labs assets were transferred to USO. The head of USO was Larry Dooling, who had been a vice-president in sales and marketing in the AT&T Data Systems Group. Unlike the original Unix work, which had been done in the Bell Labs facility in Murray Hill, USO and the commercialization work was done a few miles away in
Summit, New Jersey Summit is a city in Union County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The city is located on a ridge in northern-central New Jersey, within the Raritan Valley and Rahway Valley regions in the New York metropolitan area. At the 2010 United State ...
. This AT&T Bell Labs location was known as SF for Summit Facility. UNIX System Laboratories, Inc., came into being as a separate subsidiary of AT&T in November 1989 and was assigned all U.S.-based AT&T Unix and USO assets. However USO continued to operate as USO until June 1990, when the reincorporation of AT&T's European and Asian Unix business operations as wholly owned subsidiaries of USL was completed. At that point the UNIX Software Operation was publicly rebranded as UNIX System Laboratories. Again, a point of emphasis was to separate the Unix-based business from AT&T's hardware-based business. The subsidiaries were known as UNIX System Laboratories Europe, Ltd., sited near Ealing Broadway in
London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
, and UNIX System Laboratories Pacific, Ltd., located in
Shiba, Tokyo Shiba (芝) is an area of Minato ward in Tokyo, Japan and one of districts in the Shiba area. Shiba area Shiba was a ward of Tokyo City from 1878 to 1947. It was merged with Akasaka and Azabu wards to form Minato ward on March 15, 1947. Th ...
. Dooling was named the initial president of USL, continuing from his position at USO. These organizational changes were taking place in the context of the open systems movement and the ongoing
Unix wars The Unix wars were struggles between vendors to set a standard for the Unix operating system in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Origins Although AT&T Corporation created Unix, by the 1980s, the University of California, Berkeley Computer Sy ...
. In consequence, the pro-AT&T side Unix International (as opposed to the anti-AT&T side Open Software Foundation) declared that "In the last 18 months AT&T has made good on its commitment to treat UNIX System as the industry asset it is and to open the UNIX System V development process to the entire industry."


Unix System V work

One unit within USL, called the UNIX System V Software business unit and headed by Michael J. DeFazio, was responsible for the development of the UNIX System V base technology. DeFazio had held a similar role within USO. The USO/USL staff was heavily involved in the creation of UNIX System V Release 4, which shipped in 1989 and was a joint project with
Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun for short) was an American technology company that sold computers, computer components, software, and information technology services and created the Java programming language, the Solaris operating system, ZFS, t ...
. This work incorporated technology from a variety of Unix-based efforts, including
UNIX System V Unix System V (pronounced: "System Five") is one of the first commercial versions of the Unix operating system. It was originally developed by AT&T and first released in 1983. Four major versions of System V were released, numbered 1, 2, 3, an ...
, BSD, and
Xenix Xenix is a discontinued version of the Unix operating system for various microcomputer platforms, licensed by Microsoft from AT&T Corporation in the late 1970s. The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO) later acquired exclusive rights to the software, ...
. There were additions and new innovations as well from both the AT&T and Sun sides. System V Release 4 debuted at the Unix Expo trade show in New York in November 1989, in the form of source code availability for it as well as demonstrations from Unix International of SVR4-based applications running on seventeen different vendor platforms. End-user versions of Release 4 became available during 1990. Next USL engaged in an especially arduous effort into trying to satisfy the requirements of the National Computer Security Center's Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria ("Orange Book") to the B2 level. This manifested itself in System V Release 4.1 ES (Enhanced Security), which also included generally useful features such as support for dynamic loading of kernel modules. Following that, USL worked on System V Release 4.2, which was released in June 1992. ''
InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...
'' characterized this effort as "at the core of an assault on the enterprise networking market," with a modular architecture that stressed improved support for enterprise- and network-level administration, drivers for both
Token Ring Token Ring network IBM hermaphroditic connector with locking clip. Screen contacts are prominently visible, gold-plated signal contacts less so. Token Ring is a computer networking technology used to build local area networks. It was introduc ...
and
Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...
, and a greater ability to run on low-end machine configurations. Multiprocessing became the focus of the final USL-based OEM release of System V, which was Release 4.2MP, released in December 1993. USL continued the publication of an early Unix standard, the System V Interface Definition (SVID). Moreover, the SVID became one of the bases for the more important, vendor-independent
POSIX The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines both the system- and user-level application programming in ...
standard for Unix, which System V Release 4 releases also conformed to, as well as the later Single UNIX Specification. USL produced many books documenting various aspects of Unix System V. USL also provided some training and consulting services for Unix systems.


Chorus and Ouverture

In 1991, USL forged an arrangement with the French company
Chorus Systèmes SA Chorus Systèmes SA was a French software company that existed from 1986 to 1997, that was created to commercialise research work done at the Institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique (INRIA). Its primary product was the ...
to engage in cooperative work on the
Chorus Chorus may refer to: Music * Chorus (song) or refrain, line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse * Chorus effect, the perception of similar sounds from multiple sources as a single, richer sound * Chorus form, song in which all verse ...
microkernel technology, with the idea of supporting SVR4 on a microkernel and thereby making it more scalable and better suited for parallel and distributed applications. As part of this, USL took a $1 million stake in Chorus Systèmes. Much of the USL Chorus work was done at the USL Europe facility in London. By 1993 the work was still ongoing, with questions of industry standardization of interfaces arising.
Unisys Unisys Corporation is an American multinational information technology (IT) services and consulting company headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania. It provides digital workplace solutions, cloud, applications, and infrastructure solutions, ...
was also part of the collaboration effort. Announcements made during 1993 promised an OEM release in 1994 and a general availability release in 1995. This was part of the larger Ouverture project, a $14 million effort that was itself part of the
European Strategic Program on Research in Information Technology European Strategic Programme on Research in Information Technology (ESPRIT) was a series of integrated programmes of information technology research and development projects and industrial technology transfer measures. It was a European Union in ...
(ESPRIT), overseen by the
European Commission The European Commission (EC) is the executive of the European Union (EU). It operates as a cabinet government, with 27 members of the Commission (informally known as "Commissioners") headed by a President. It includes an administrative body ...
.


Other software work

Another unit within USL, called the Open Solutions Software business unit and headed by Joel A. Appelbaum, was responsible for other system software that in some way worked in conjunction with Unix. The Tuxedo transaction processing middleware had also been transferred from elsewhere in AT&T to USL. It had originated as the Loop Maintenance Operations System (LMOS) followed by the Unix Transaction System (UNITS) and was used for projects internally within AT&T. It was then renamed by USL and, as Release 4.0 of what was now called Tuxedo, in 1989 was offered for the first time as a commercial product. USL also developed and marketed the OSI Communications Platform, which was an implementation of the OSI protocols for Unix-based networking.


C++ language work

There was also a languages department at Unix System Laboratories, which was responsible for the
C language C (''pronounced like the letter c'') is a general-purpose computer programming language. It was created in the 1970s by Dennis Ritchie, and remains very widely used and influential. By design, C's features cleanly reflect the capabilities ...
compiler and development tools used to build Unix. Moreover, it was responsible for commercial sales related to the C++ language, including development tools such as the Cfront compiler that had come from AT&T. Indeed, the paper describing one of the first implementations of automatic instantiation of C++ templates in a C++ compiler had as lead author an engineer associated with Unix System Laboratories. And Margaret A. Ellis, co-author with C++ creator Bjarne Stroustrup of ''The Annotated C++ Reference Manual'', an important publication in the history of the language, was a USL software engineer. USL also continued the development of, and attempted to market, C++ Standard Components, an early instance of a C++ software foundation library that supported container classes and various other
computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to Applied science, practical discipli ...
-based functionality such as finite-state machines, graphs, and
regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...
s. The Standard Components originated in conjunction with early developments in the C++ language in Bell Labs and became widely used internally within AT&T, by one estimate being used in hundreds of projects. They represented an effort among early library writers there to design reusable code using C++ idioms. Unlike its other offerings, which were sold to OEM vendors and resellers, here USL sold to end users. The initial release of USL C++ Standard Components to the general computing industry was labelled as Release 2.0 and occurred in 1991; it suffered from an awkward mechanism to get around the lack of templates in the container classes. That was followed by Release 3.0, which added support for templates, in 1992. Some within USL believed that C++ Standard Components could become a language standard as well as a significant source of revenue, but it had trouble gaining traction outside of AT&T. Stroustrup would later describe these goals as "a misguided belief". In any case, all such libraries were soon eclipsed by the radically different Standard Template Library (STL), which became the standardized foundation library for the C++ language. As it happens, one of the Standard Components, array_alg, was designed by the creator of STL, Alex Stepanov, and can be considered an early predecessor of STL.


Partial spinoff from AT&T

In April 1991, USL became partly independent of AT&T when about 22 percent of it, worth about $65 million, was sold to eleven outside computer vendors:
Amdahl Amdahl may refer to: People * Einar Amdahl (1888-1974), Norwegian theologist * Bjarne Amdahl (1903-1968), Norwegian pianist and composer * Douglas K. Amdahl (1919–2010), American lawyer and judge from Minnesota * Gene Amdahl (1922–2015), for ...
,
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, Motorola ...
, Novell, Sun, ICL,
Olivetti Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines. Headquartered in Ivrea, in the Metropolitan City of Turin, the company has been par ...
,
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 ...
,
NEC is a Japanese multinational information technology and electronics corporation, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo. The company was known as the Nippon Electric Company, Limited, before rebranding in 1983 as NEC. It provides IT and network soluti ...
,
OKI Electric , commonly referred to as OKI, OKI Electric or the OKI Group, is a Japanese information and communications technology company, headquartered in Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo and operating in over 120 countries around the world. OKI produced the ...
,
Toshiba , commonly known as Toshiba and stylized as TOSHIBA, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Its diversified products and services include power, industrial and social infrastructure systems, ...
, and the Institute for Information Industry. There was a stated goal to lessen the control AT&T had over Unix, which would lead to USL becoming a publicly owned company within three years. An AT&T executive said, "AT&T is convinced that the best way to nurture the growth of the open systems movement and to share into it ourselves is to establish an independent Unix Systems Laboratory with the technical guidance of Unix International and the business advice of investors who will ensure that USL is run properly and profitably." By this point USL had some 500 employees, 2400 customers, and annual revenue around the $100 million mark. AT&T said that USL had been profitable since its inception in 1989. USL got a new president and CEO in November 1991 when Dooling was replaced by the Dutchman
Roel Pieper Roland "Roel" Pieper (born 1956, Vlaardingen, Netherlands) is a Dutch IT-entrepreneur. Early life and education Pieper was born (April 13, 1956) in Vlaardingen, son of an engineer at a car manufacturer. His father died when Pieper was 20, and on ...
, formerly chief technical officer of Software AG. USL was aggressive in defending its perceived intellectual property rights, initiating as the plaintiff a lawsuit in 1992 against Berkeley Software Design makers of and the
Regents of the University of California The Regents of the University of California (also referred to as the Board of Regents to distinguish the board from the corporation it governs of the same name) is the governing board of the University of California (UC), a state university sy ...
over copyrights and trademarks related to Unix. The case was known as ''
UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. v. Berkeley Software Design, Inc. ''USL v. BSDi'' was a lawsuit brought in the United States in 1992 by Unix System Laboratories against Berkeley Software Design, Inc and the Regents of the University of California over intellectual property related to the Unix operating system; a ...
'' and in it USL asked the court for a
preliminary injunction An injunction is a legal and equitable remedy in the form of a special court order that compels a party to do or refrain from specific acts. ("The court of appeals ... has exclusive jurisdiction to enjoin, set aside, suspend (in whole or in p ...
that would bar the Berkeley firm and the university from distributing their Net/2 operating system release, which was implied to be Unix, until the case was concluded. In response the university filed a countersuit against AT&T for alleged breaches in the licensing agreement the two parties had. (The case was settled out of court in January 1994.)


Univel and UnixWare

In December 1991, USL combined with Novell to form the
Univel Univel, Inc. was a joint venture of Novell and AT&T's Unix System Laboratories (USL) that was formed in December 1991 to develop and market the Destiny desktop Unix operating system, which was released in 1992 as UnixWare 1.0. Univel existed ...
joint venture. The goal was to make the " Destiny" desktop for Intel commodity hardware, which would be USL's first shrink-wrapped binary product, with the necessary resources for sales, marketing, and distribution being moved into the new entity. Kanwal Rekhi, a Novell vice president who helped launch Univel, said the goal was to create a "Unix for the masses". A May 1992 ''
InfoWorld ''InfoWorld'' (abbreviated IW) is an information technology media business. Founded in 1978, it began as a monthly magazine. In 2007, it transitioned to a web-only publication. Its parent company today is International Data Group, and its siste ...
'' interview with Pieper captured some of the ambitions of USL at the time, as Pieper said: "It is not just a new Unix version; rather it is the creation of an entire model change for Unix that says there are better ways to bring the benefits and features of Unix into a distributed PC environment. The earlier model did not allow Unix to play in the low-end market because of its size, complexity, and cost. The new model calls for business partnerships, such as the one with Novell, to deliver Unix to the commercial marketplace." In another interview around the same time, Pieper predicted that if the new Unix became a success, USL revenue could increase ten-fold to $1 billion within five years. Pieper acknowledged that similar Unix efforts had failed in the past, but said that the presence of Novell's PC presence and marketing experience as well as the interest of Intel would make the difference this time. Indeed, Pieper had aspirations to be another
Bill Gates William Henry Gates III (born October 28, 1955) is an American business magnate and philanthropist. He is a co-founder of Microsoft, along with his late childhood friend Paul Allen. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions ...
: "I want to be in the same position." UnixWare 1.0, which is what Destiny became a product as, was announced on October 12, 1992. It was based on the Unix System V release 4.2 kernel. The
MoOLIT MoOLIT (Motif OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit) is a graphical user interface library and application programming interface (API) created by Unix System Laboratories in an attempt to create a bridge between the two competing look-and-feels for Unix w ...
toolkit was used for the
windowing system In computing, a windowing system (or window system) is software that manages separately different parts of display screens. It is a type of graphical user interface (GUI) which implements the WIMP ( windows, icons, menus, pointer) paradigm f ...
, allowing the user to choose between an OPEN LOOK or MOTIF-like look and feel at run time. In order to make the system more robust on commodity desktop hardware the Veritas VXFS journaling file system was used in place of the UFS file system used in SVR4. Networking support in UnixWare included both
TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the su ...
and interoperability with Novell's
NetWare NetWare is a discontinued computer network operating system developed by Novell, Inc. It initially used cooperative multitasking to run various services on a personal computer, using the IPX network protocol. The original NetWare product in ...
protocols of IPX/SPX. The former were the standard among Unix users at the time of development, while PC networking was much more commonly based on the highly successful NetWare product; indeed, the base level of the Personal Edition of UnixWare did not even have TCP/IP included, while the Application Server version did. Initial sales of UnixWare were underwhelming, with Unix facing a difficult time in the PC market. This was in part because Windows already had a stronghold there, in part because USL's third-party licensing payment obligations made low-cost sales uneconomical, and in part because of a lack of applications to run on UnixWare.


Acquisition by Novell

On December 21, 1992, it was announced that Novell would acquire Unix System Laboratories, and all of its Unix assets, including all copyrights, trademarks, and licensing contracts, for some $335 million in stock. The news led to large headlines of the "NOVELL BUYS UNIX" variety. The measure was intended to help Novell compete against
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, Washi ...
, which was on the verge of including networking as a built-in feature of
Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...
in conjunction with the
Windows NT Windows NT is a proprietary graphical operating system produced by Microsoft, the first version of which was released on July 27, 1993. It is a processor-independent, multiprocessing and multi-user operating system. The first version of Win ...
server. It was also an outgrowth of Novell chief
Ray Noorda Raymond John "Ray" Noorda (19 June 1924 – 9 October 2006) was a U.S. computer businessman. He was CEO of Novell between 1982 and 1994. He also served as chairman of Novell until he was replaced in 1994. Early life Noorda was born in Og ...
's theories about coopetition in a technology industry. The move seemed like a long shot to analysts, with a commentary piece in ''
Computerworld ''Computerworld'' (abbreviated as CW) is an ongoing decades old professional publication which in 2014 "went digital." Its audience is information technology (IT) and business technology professionals, and is available via a publication website ...
'' outlining the obstacles to success and stating, "Saying this deal has the technical potential to counter Windows NT is very different from predicting that it will do so." There was negative reaction to the acquisition from USL shareholders, USL employees, and members of Unix International. Noorda had to emphasize that Novell had no plans to move USL operations from New Jersey to Utah, where Novell was based. And Noorda and Pieper had to travel to Japan to reassure USL shareholders and investors there. Nonetheless, the deal was finalized in June 1993. Novell created the Unix Systems Group to contain the new business, which also absorbed the Univel venture. Rekhi was named as the head of the Unix Systems Group. Pieper, who had been assigned under Rekhi with little role to play, soon departed, leaving Novell in August 1993. The USL Europe office in London was moved into Novell's facility in Bracknell, Berkshire. The Chorus work it was doing became the basis for the Novell " SuperNOS", a project to create a microkernel-based, UnixWare–NetWare hybrid, network operating system.


Legacy

The acquisition of USL never really worked out for Novell, and was followed by Novell's misguided acquisitions of WordPerfect and Quattro Pro in another attempt to compete head-to-head with Microsoft. In particular, the "SuperNOS" project never achieved fruition. Novell announced the sale of Unix to the
Santa Cruz Operation The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc. (usually known as SCO, pronounced either as individual letters or as a word) was an American software company, based in Santa Cruz, California, that was best known for selling three Unix operating system variants ...
, coincident with a licensing arrangement with
Hewlett Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company headquartered in Palo Alto, California. HP developed and provided a wide variety of hardware components ...
, in September 1995. Following another change of ownership, the renamed
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 ...
and the Unix System V source base became elements of the
SCO–Linux disputes In a series of legal disputes between SCO Group and Linux vendors and users SCO alleged that its license agreements with IBM meant that source code IBM wrote and donated to be incorporated into Linux was added in violation of SCO's contractual rig ...
. After The SCO Group went bankrupt, the SCO products using the Unix System V source base were purchased by UnXis, later renamed to
Xinuos Xinuos is an American software company that was created in 2011 and was first called UnXis until assuming its current name in 2013. (Both names have been variations on the spelling of the Unix operating system.) Xinuos develops and markets the U ...
. Although it never took off within the industry, C++ Standard Components remained in the development kits for Novell UnixWare, later SCO UnixWare, into the 2000s. See als
"Relationship to the C++ Standard Library"
at the same site.
Tuxedo was acquired by BEA Systems in the 1990s, and then upon that firm being acquired became part of Oracle Fusion Middleware. In the view of writer Christopher Negus, "The UNIX Laboratory was considered a jewel that couldn't quite find a home or a way to make a profit. As it moved between Bell Laboratories and other areas of AT&T, its name changed several times. It is probably best remembered by the name it had as it began its spin-off from AT&T: UNIX System Laboratories (USL)." However Negus believes that in three crucial respects USL's actions – in continuing to release a source code product to its partners, in working to define industry standards such as POSIX, and in making decisions on the direction of Unix based on technical merit not corporate advantage – paved the way for the rise of a Unix-like entity such as the Linux operating system, and that this beneficial historical role has been obscured by the SCO–Linux controversies.


See also

*
History of Unix The history of Unix dates back to the mid-1960s, when the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, AT&T Bell Labs, and General Electric were jointly developing an experimental time-sharing operating system called Multics for the GE-645 mainframe ...


References


External links


History and Timeline from The Open Group
{{Authority control 1989 establishments in New Jersey 1993 disestablishments in New Jersey 1993 mergers and acquisitions AT&T subsidiaries Bell Labs Defunct companies based in New Jersey Defunct software companies of the United States Novell Software companies established in 1989 Software companies disestablished in 1993 Summit, New Jersey Unix history