Caldera OpenLinux
By 1997 Caldera had taken on the form that it would be most remembered for. Caldera had switched over to the high end Linux product. The "business" linux distribution became more rich with features with bundled proprietary software. However, it became less community oriented and was released less frequently than other Linuxes did. Other differences included automated configuration for administration tools, paid technical support staff, built-in consistent default GUI, and a range of supported applications. In 1995, for example when XFree86 was still very hard to configure and unreliable on most chip sets, Caldera had shipped with MetroLink's Motif and XI Graphic's Accelerated-X.
[edit] Commercial extensions
Over the next 5 years Caldera offered additional commercial extensions to Linux. They licensed Sun's Wabi to allow people to run Windows applications under Linux. Additionally, they shipped with Linux versions of Word Perfect and CorelDRAW (from Novell and later Corel). Since many of their customers used a dual boot setup and FIPS was unreliable, they shipped with PartitionMagic to allow their customers to non destructively repartition their disk. In partnership with IBM they produced the first Linux distribution which was DB2 compatible. With the Oracle Corporation they became the target platform for the Linux port of the Oracle database. Other ventures included starting the Blackdown Java project, founding the Embedix distribution, created professional certification. They also formed strong partnerships with SCO's value-added reseller market and started laying the ground work for OEM sales of Unix based vertical applications. By the end Caldera offered 3 versions:
- Lite was a freely downloadable version.
- Base was a $99 version with a few extensions.
- Standards was $299 and was their full featured product.
In addition to other people's applications, they created many Linux extensions to fill voids where no other commercial company was. Caldera began working on a Linux equivalent of replacing the Microsoft Exchange Server and Microsoft Outlook that would eventually become Volution Messaging Server. Volution Messaging Server which was a replacement for exchange server integration with Microsoft's Outlook and offers calendaring/scheduling options with shared busy/free information, SSL support for e-mail and easy configuration.[9] Additionally, they created the first fully graphical installer for Linux, called Lizard. They invented browser based Unix system administration and created the webmin project as well as purchasing DR-DOS to create OpenDOS to help port DOS applications.
Caldera created a full featured GUI system administration tool called Caldera Open Administration System (COAS). The tool was a unified, easy to use administration tool with a modular design. With its scalability and broad scope abilities it featured:[10][11]
- Portability (specifics encapsulated in a platform repository)
- Open development model
- Flexible module licensing
- Multiple user interfaces (batch processing, ncurses, QT, Java)
- Scripting interface (Python) for rapid prototyping
- Backward compatibility (works on native files, "vi admin" friendly)
OpenLinux was not a Microsoft killer, but it showed the Linux community what would be required to create a mainstream desktop OS out of the Linux kernel. In many ways the last 10 years of desktop progress has been to successfully implement what Caldera was attempting to do with the tools they had available[citation needed]. Their technique for this was to utilize commercial software to fill in the largest gaps. This made their product a "value add" and thus they could charge for it, and at the same time it made them the most advanced distribution available[citation needed].
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