Monday 21 September 2009

Get the facts

Microsoft: "There is no guarantee that when security vulnerabilities are discovered, an update will be created. Users are on their own."

Trouble is, current best practices for a business is to have a dedicated system for financial transactions. A system that has no hard drive, booting from a Live Disk whenever one wants/needs to do an online banking transaction, or other sensitivity transactions.

Microsoft: "There is no ability to set Parental Restrictions".

Trouble is, at least one Linux distro Ubuntu Christian Edition) includes "parental restrictions", as a matter of course. Well, technical, it restricts everybody, but since the main function is to restrict kids.....

Thursday 10 September 2009

DrDOS TimeLine

Dr-DOS was originally created by Intergalatic Digital Research, Inc, in Pacific Grove, California.

Digital Research, Inc, was the successor in interest to Intergalatic Digital Research, Inc.

Novell bought (1991) Digital Research, Inc. with the idea of shipping a SOHO OS that included networking, and an office suite.(WordPerfect, Quattro Pro, Paradox, DrDos, Novell Lite, and a couple of other things.)

The SOHO OS didn't work out for Novell. NovellOffice was sold to in Corel (1996). (Corel Linux was sold to Xandros in 2001.)

Caldera started off as an internal group to develop a Linux distro for Novell. Caldera Systems was spun off by Novell, in 1996, taking most of the operating systems with it. Caldera Systems, in turn, spun off Caldera Thin Clients, which, in turn, (1998) became Lineo Solutions, INC. Dr-Dos was then opensourced. DrDos was then spun off into DeviceLogics, and became closed source. Metrowerks bought out DeviceLogics, who then spun it out (2002) as part of DrDOS, Inc. The other spinoff was Caldera Internatinal, which developed Caldera Linux. (Caldera Linux in 2001 used a Unix kernel, not a Linux kernel.)

Tarantella Enterprise was a product from Santa Cruz Operations that resulted from their purchase (1994),and integration of half a dozen minor companies.

Santa Cruz Operations sold their Unix business to Caldera Systems Inc, in 2001. Santa Cruz Operations then renamed themselves Tarantella, Inc. In 2005, Sun purchased Tarantella, Inc.

in 1995 Novell sold the right to distribute UnixWare to Santa Cruz Operations. Santa Cruz Operations, in turn, sold those rights to Caldera Systems, Inc, in 2001.

In 2002, Caldera Systems, Inc renamed itself SCOGroup.

To recap:

1987: Digital Research, Inc releases DrDOS 1.0;
1991: Novell purchases Digital Research, Inc. (DrDOS)
1996: DrDOS spunoff to Caldera Systems;(DrDOS)
1997: Caldera Systems spins off Caldera Thin Clients (DrDOS);
1998: Caldera Thin Clients renames itself Lineo Solutions, Inc (DrDOS);
1998: Unixware rights sold to Santa Cruz Operations, Inc by Novell; (UnixWare)
2002 (?): Lineo Solutions, Inc acquired by DeviceLogic, Inc; (DrDOS)
? DeviceLogic purchased by MetroWerks (DrDOS)
2000: Caldera Systems purchases Santa Cruz Operations Unix business. (UnixWare)
2002: MetroWerks sells DrDOS to DrDOS, Inc. (DrDOS)
2002:
2005: Tarantella, Inc purchased by Sun, INC. (ex unix player);