Jump to content

Unix System Laboratories

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Wasted Time R (talk | contribs) at 14:52, 29 April 2018 (add infobox; add images; add other locations). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.
UNIX System Laboratories
Company typePrivate
Industry
FoundedNovember 1989 (1989-11)
DefunctJune 1993 (1993-06)
FateAcquired
Headquarters
Summit, New Jersey
,
United States
Number of locations
3
Key people
Products
  • Operating systems
  • transaction monitors
  • C++ language products
Revenue$100 million (1991, equivalent to $231 million today)
Number of employees
500 (1991)
Divisions
  • Unix System V
  • Tuxedo
  • Languages
  • others

Unix System Laboratories (USL), sometimes written UNIX System Laboratories, 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, it was responsible for the development and maintenance of one of the main branches of the Unix operating system, the UNIX System V Release 4 source code product. Through Univel, a partnership with Novell, it was also responsible for the development and production of the UnixWare packaged operating system for Intel architecture. In addition it developed Tuxedo, a transaction processing monitor, and was responsible for certain products related to the C++ programming language. USL was based in Summit, New Jersey, and its CEOs were Larry Dooling followed by Roel Pieper.

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."[1] USL was sold to Novell in 1993.

Origins as subsidiary of AT&T

See also: History of Unix and Unix Wars

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.[2] 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,"[3] the latter a reference to AT&T Computer Systems. USO included the AT&T Data Systems Group organizations responsible for UNIX product planning and management, licensing, and marketing. Peter J. Weinberger was named chief scientist of USO while also retaining his job in the computing science research center at Bell Labs; no other Bell Labs assets were transferred to USO.

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,[1][4] in a building located off a cloverleaf-like interchange among New Jersey Route 24, New Jersey Route 124, and John F. Kennedy Parkway and across from The Mall at Short Hills and near the Passaic River.[5]

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.[3] 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.[2] At that point the UNIX Software Operation was publicly rebranded as UNIX System Laboratories.[3] Again, a point of emphasis was to separate the Unix-based business from AT&T's hardware-based business.[6] The subsidiaries were known as UNIX System Laboratories Europe, Ltd., sited on Ealing Broadway in London, and UNIX System Laboratories Pacific, Ltd., located in Shiba, Tokyo.[7]

The initial president of USL was Larry Dooling.[3]

These organizational changes were taking place in the context of the open systems movement and the ongoing Unix wars. 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."[3]

Unix System V work

Multi-part room numbers were characteristic of the AT&T heritage of the USL office in Summit
Main article: UNIX System V

One unit within USL, headed by Michael J. DeFazio, was responsible for the development of the UNIX System V base technology.[3] 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.[8] This work incorporated technology from a variety of Unix-based efforts, including UNIX System V, BSD, and Xenix.[8] There were additions and new innovations as well. An especially arduous effort went into trying to satisfy the requirements of the National Computer Security Center's Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria to the B2 level.[9]

USL also provided some training and consulting services for Unix systems.[10]

Other software work

Main article: Tuxedo (software)

Another unit within USL, headed by Joel A. Appelbaum, was responsible for other system software that in some way worked in conjunction with Unix.[3]

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.[11]

C++ language work

See also: C++ § History

There was also a languages department at Unix System Laboratories, which was responsible for the C-based 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.[12] 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.[13][14] 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.[12]

A software developer working in the Summit building

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-based functionality such as finite-state machines, graphs, and regular expressions.[15][16] The Standard Components originated in conjunction with early developments in the C++ language in Bell Labs and became widely used internally within AT&T,[12] by one estimate being used in hundreds of projects.[17] They represented an effort among early library writers there to design reusable code using C++ idioms.[14] Unlike its other offerings, which were sold to OEM vendors and resellers, here USL sold to end users.[16] The initial release of USL C++ Standard Components to the general computing industry was labelled as Release 2.0 and occurred in 1991;[18] it suffered from an awkward mechanism to get around the lack of templates in the container classes.[16] That was followed by Release 3.0, which added support for templates, in 1992.[18]

Some within USL believed that C++ Standard Components could become a language standard as well as a significant source of revenue,[12] but it had trouble gaining traction outside of AT&T. Stroustrup would later describe these goals as "a misguided belief".[12] 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.[19] 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.[20]

Partial spinoff from AT&T and Univel

See also: Univel and UnixWare

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, Motorola, Novell, Sun, ICL, Olivetti, Fujitsu, NEC, OKI Electric, Toshiba, and the Institute for Information Industry.[21] 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.[21] By this point USL had some 500 employees, 2400 customers, and annual revenue around the $100 million mark.[21] AT&T said that USL had been profitable since its inception in 1989.[21]

USL got a new president and CEO in November 1991 when Dooling was replaced by the Dutchman Roel Pieper, formerly chief technical officer of Software AG.[22]

USL was aggressive in defending its perceived intellectual property rights, initiated as the plaintiff in 1992 against Berkeley Software Design and the Regents of the University of California over copyrights and trademarks related to Unix.[23] The lawsuit was known as UNIX System Laboratories, Inc. v. Berkeley Software Design, Inc. and in it USL asked the court for a preliminary injunction that would bar BSDi and UC Berkeley from distributing their Net/2 operating system release 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.[23] (The case was settled out of court in 1994.)

In December 1991, USL combined with Novell to form the Univel joint venture.[24] 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.[25] Kanwal Rekhi, a Novell vice president who helped launch Univel, said the goal was to create a "Unix for the masses". [26]

A May 1992 InfoWorld interivew 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."[27] 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.[28] 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.[27] Indeed, Pieper had aspirations to be another Bill Gates: "I want to be in the same position."[28]

On October 12, 1992, the UnixWare product was announced as a joint effort between Novell and USL. Initial sales of UnixWare were underwhelming, with Unix facing a difficult time in the PC market.[29] 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.[1]

Acquisition by Novell

The Summit building in the Novell Unix Systems Group era

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.[4] The measure was intended to help Novell compete against Microsoft, which was on the verge of including networking as a built-in feature of Windows in conjunction with the Windows NT server.[4][29] It was also an outgrowth of Novell chief Ray Noorda's theories about coopetition in a technology industry.[30] TODO clarify

The move seemed like a long shot to analysts, with a commentary piece in Computerworld outlining the obstacles and success and stating, "Saying this deal has the technical potential to counter Windows NT is very different from predicting that it will do so."[29]

There was negative reaction to the acquisition from USL shareholders, USL employees, and members of Unix International.[30] Norda had to emphasize that Novell had no plans to move USL operations from New Jersey to Utah, where Novell was based.[30] And Noorda and Pieper had to travel to Japan to reassure USL shareholders and investors there.[30]

Nonetheless, the deal was finalized in June 1993.[10] Novell created the Unix Systems Group to contain the new business, which also absorbed the Univel venture.[31] Rekhi was named as the head of the Unix Systems Group.[32] Pieper, who had been assigned under Rekhi with little role to play, soon departed, leaving Novell in August 1993.[33][32]

Legacy

Novell sold Unix to the Santa Cruz Operation and Hewlett Packard in September 1995.[34]

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.[15]

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)."[1] However Negus believes that in several respects AT&T/USO/USL paved the way for the rise of the Linux operating system and that this has been obscured by the SCO/Linux controversies.[1]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Negus, Christopher (2015). Linux Bible: The Comprehensive, Tutorial Resource (Ninth ed.). Indianapolis: John Wiley & Sons. pp. 10–11. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  2. ^ a b "..." Signals. 1991. pp. 61–66.
  3. ^ a b c d e f g "AT&T Renames Unix Software Unix System Laboratories" (Press release). PR Newsire. June 25, 1990.
  4. ^ a b c "Technology". Los Angeles Times. December 22, 1992.
  5. ^ "190 River Rd, Summit NJ 07901". Google Maps. Retrieved April 1, 2018.
  6. ^ Ambrosio, Johanna (July 23, 1990). "AT&T's Unix unit spun off". Computerworld. p. 10.
  7. ^ AUUG Conference Proceedings 1992. Australian Open Systems Users Group. Summer 1992. p. 39.
  8. ^ a b "History and Timeline". The Open Group. Retrieved December 1, 2017.
  9. ^ Ambrosio, Johanna (October 1, 1990). "AT&T Unix to gain enhanced security". Computerworld. p. 32.
  10. ^ a b "Novell completes acquisition of UNIX System Laboratories from AT&T" (Press release). Business Wire. June 14, 1993.
  11. ^ Andrade, Juan M.; Carges, Mark T.; Dwyer, Terence J.; Felts, Stephen D. (1996). The TUXEDO System: Software for Constructing and Managing Distributed Business Applications. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley. pp. xxxiii–xxxvi.
  12. ^ a b c d e Stroustrup, Bjarne (1994). The Design and Evolution of C++. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley. pp. 124–125, 126–127, 184.
  13. ^ McCluskey, Glen; Murray, Robert B. (December 1992). "Template Instantiation For C++". SIGPLAN Notices. 27 (12): 47–56.
  14. ^ a b Carroll, Martin D.; Ellis, Margaret A. (1995). Designing and Coding Reusable C++. Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley. pp. x, 231.
  15. ^ a b "C++ Standard Components". The SCO Group. June 2, 2005. Retrieved December 1, 2017. See also "Relationship to the C++ Standard Library" at the same site.
  16. ^ a b c Leggett, Bill (June 1992). "Product Review: The USL C++ Standard Components Release 2 (end user package)". C++ Report. pp. 69–73.
  17. ^ Alam, M. Afshar; Padenga, Tendai (2010). Application Software Reengineering. Delhi: Pearson. p. 146. {{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)
  18. ^ a b "Product History". The SCO Group. June 2, 2005. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  19. ^ Stroustrup, Bjarne (June 2007). "Evolving a language in and for the real world: C++ 1991-2006". Proceedings of the third ACM SIGPLAN conference on history of programming languages. ACM. pp. 4-8 – 4-11.
  20. ^ "Alexander A. Stepanov". stepanovpapers.com. October 6, 2016. Retrieved December 15, 2017. and "No More Array Errors (Part II) - Array_alg(C++)". The SCO Group. June 2, 2005. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  21. ^ a b c d Ambrosio, Johanna (April 8, 1991). "AT&T's Unix sell-off won't sway OSF". Computerworld. p. 12.
  22. ^ "Roel Pieper ist neuer Chef der USL". Computerwoche von IDG (in German). December 6, 1991.
  23. ^ a b Toomey, Warren (November 28, 2011). "The Strange Birth and Long Life of Unix". IEEE Spectrum.
  24. ^ Nash, Jim (December 16, 1991). "Unix Labs, Novell tighten ties". Computerworld. p. 115.
  25. ^ "Unix Labs and Novell plan join venture, reveal bones of mass distribution alliance". Computer Business Review. October 24, 1991.
  26. ^ Wylie, Margie (April 13, 1992). "Univel developing user-friendly Unix". Network World. p. 13.
  27. ^ a b "USL's Pieper readies Unix for the PC network market". InfoWorld. May 11, 1992. p. 106.
  28. ^ a b Schwartz, Evan I. (June 22, 1992). "A Unix For The Masses?". Bloomberg News.
  29. ^ a b c Babcock, Charles (January 11, 1993). "Novell's long shot". Computerworld. p. 34.
  30. ^ a b c d "Novell, Unix Labs Try to Reassure Japanese on the Merger". Computer Business Review. March 4, 1993.
  31. ^ "Novell formally announces the Unix Systems Group". Computer Business Review. July 7, 1993.
  32. ^ a b "Novell Unix Official Out". The New York Times. August 31, 1993. p. 57.
  33. ^ "News Shorts: Pieper bids adieu". Computerworld. September 6, 1993. p. 16.
  34. ^ "UnixWare survives through sale, licensing deal". Network World. September 25, 1995. p. 134.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Unix_System_Laboratories&oldid=838826548"