On 2003-05-23, Shane M. Coughlan wrote:


>> So, proof positive.  GEM is all out there, and everything DR made
>> (or had the rights to) regarding GEM, is now GPL.  This is why
>> I keep yelling that OpenGEM and other FreeGEM distros are something
>> to look at.  We're got this wonderful complete software enviroment
>> to play with.


On 2003-05-23, Steve Nickolas wrote:


>> [...] Although last I checked GEM had passed from Caldera (=SCO)
>> into the hands of Lineo, I'm not sure who owns the copyright
>> anymore... :\  Failing Caldera or Lineo one could possibly
>> try DeviceLogics


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.

BTW. Since the 8080/Z80 CPUs were mentioned here these days, I'd
like to mention that Bryan Sparks, then-times CEO of Lineo, Inc.
has also issued a general license in 2001 to allow the collection,
distribution, and further development of any CP/M-based technology
as part of the late Tim Olmstead's site "Unofficial CP/M Archive."
After Tim's unfortunate death (cancer), this site is now maintained
by Gaby Chaudry and supported by CP/M fans all over the world:

 http://www.gaby.de

Caldera & Lineo have also contributed all CP/M related sources and
binaries they could still find in their archives. Most of the stuff
has gone lost somewhere somewhen at Novell times, though. 

(In 1997, it was difficult enough to even track down all the Novell DOS 7
sources, and parts of the system had to (and have been) become re-
engineered in order to go forward and not have to go a step backward
with the release of DR-DOS 7.02. Caldera OpenDOS 7.01 did not include
all the latest Novell DOS 7 sources, unfortunately.)

Still, over the years a wealth of different versions and OEM adaptations
of CP/M-80, MP/M-80, CP/M-86, MP/M-86, Personal CP/M-86, Concurrent CP/M-86,
CP/M-68K, etc. as well as related tools, drivers, networking software, and
applications have already been collected at Gaby's site, including some
of the earliest and historically most relevant issues of CP/M from around
1974 with the late Gary Kildall's (the inventor of CP/M and founder of
Intergalactic Digital Research and Digital Research, Inc.) original source
code comments.

If someone reading this still has some CP/M, MP/M, or otherwise related
files in personal archives, they are highly welcome at Gaby's site and
can be legally shared there now.

Though Concurrent CP/M-86 is the direct predecessor of Concurrent DOS
and the later Multiuser DOS families, and thereby also of the DOS Plus,
DR DOS, System Manager, and REAL/32 and partially FlexOS product families,
this license does *not* include any DOS-related software, which is still
commercially available from and to some varying degree even actively
maintained and developed by DeviceLogics, Inc. (DR DOS, DR Concurrent DOS,
Novell DR Multiuser DOS) at http://www.devicelogics.com (or http://www.drdos.com),
ITERA Intelligent Micro Software, Inc. (IMS Multiuser DOS, IMS REAL/32, IMS REAL NG)
at http://www.imsltd.com (or http://www.lii.com), and Concurrent Controls, Inc.
(CCI Multiuser DOS) at http://www.conctrls.com.

Greetings,

 Matthias