Below is a glossary of sorts to provide our visitors with more information about the terms we use and the people we refer to in our timeline

A
AIX	Operating system in the Unix family developed by IBM. SCO claims that it owns the rights to the underlying Unix source code. The whole SCO-IBM-Linux controversy stems from SCO's allegations that IBM put AIX code into Linux.
amicus curiae (brief)	Latin term meaning friend of the court. It is a report presented to the court by a third party with intent to help the court clear up issues surrounding the case. It is usually presented by individuals who, though not involved directly in the case, may have an interest in the outcome of it.
American Telephone and Telegraph (AT&T)	Former monopoly owner of all of the telephone business in the United States. AT&T developed the Unix operating system in the late 1960's and early 1970's. Their monopoly status prohibited them from selling Unix commercially as operating systems such as Microsoft's Windows are commonly sold today.
AutoZone	American auto parts retailer being sued by SCO for copyright infringement. This suit and the DaimlerChrysler suit, filed in March 2004, are the 'high-profile' cases that SCO had been threatening to file for months.
B
BayStar Capital	Venture capital firm that invested 50 million dollars in SCO, reportedly after a recommendation by senior staff at Microsoft.
Boies, David	Head of the law firm that is representing SCO. Boies gained fame by representing the US government in the Microsoft anti-trust case and by representing presidential candidate Al Gore in the US Supreme Court during the 2000 election controversy.
C
Caldera	The former name of The SCO Group. Caldera was a successful Linux distribution developer based in Utah (like RedHat, SuSE, Mandrake). Caldera bought the Unix development part of The Santa Cruz Operation (SCO, aka old SCO) in 2000 and supposedly acquired the rights to certain portions of the original Unix operating system code base.
Canopy Group	Venture capital firm which once owned 50% of SCO. Canopy divested itself of its SCO holdings in March 2005.
cease and desist (letter)	Letter sent by an intellectual property owner (patent, copyright, etc.) to a party who is allegedly using that property without permission which asks the party to stop and threatens legal action if they continue.
CE Linux Forum (CELF)	Organization formed by the world's major electronics manufacturers with the purpose of promoting the use of Linux in consumer electronic devices.
Chander, Anupam	Professor of Law at the University of California, Davis. Wrote an article for FindLaw putting SCO's claims of ownership of "Unix" in doubt.
Claybrook, Bill	Tech analyst for the Aberdeen Group who signed SCO non-disclosure agreement and saw the alleged stolen code. Though somewhat optimistic for SCO's chances for winning its suit, has since become more skeptical after a public code showing at SCOForum in Las Vegas.
Conectiva	Linux distribution developer based in Brazil. Conectiva is a member of the UnitedLinux group to which SCO (formerly Caldera) belonged.
D
DaimlerChrysler	Auto giant being sued by SCO for copyright infringement. This suit and the AutoZone suit, filed in March 2004, are the 'high-profile' cases that SCO had been threatening to file for months.
DiBona, Chris	Open source luminary. Was Linus Torvalds choice when asked if he would like to have someone look at SCO's alleged stolen code.
DiDio, Laura	Tech analyst for the Yankee Group of Boston who signed SCO non-disclosure agreement and saw the alleged stolen code. Is known for her optimism for SCO's chances for winning.
DDoS attack	DDoS (acronym for Distributed Denial of Service) attack is an situation on a network in which an attacker floods a server with incoming messages at such a tremendous rate that the server cannot handle the load and is forced to shut down.
DR-DOS	Operating system developed by Digital Research, Inc in 1987. It was later acquired by Novell who in turn sold it to Caldera. Caldera sued Microsoft for anti-trust related to compatibility problems between DR-DOS and MS Windows and reached a settlement in 2000. DR-DOS was sold in October 2002 to DeviceLogics, Inc
Dynix/ptx	Operating system like AIX (see AIX), that IBM distributed and to which SCO claims it owns the licensing rights.
E
F
Free Software Foundation (FSF)	Founded by Richard M. Stallman in 1984, its aim is to develop a freely distributed Unix-like operating system, to promote the development of freely distributed software and assure access to source code.
G
GNU (GNU's Not Unix)	Project of the Free Software Foundation to provide a Unix-like operating system with non-proprietary (ie. freely distributed) source code. The first Linux kernel was bound to a C programming language compiler and other tools developed by the GNU project thus forming the first GNU/Linux operating system.
GNU General Public License (aka GPL)	Software license created by the Free Software Foundation. It permits the free and uninhibited distribution of the source code for programs falling under that license. The Linux kernel is an example of software that uses the GNU GPL.
Groklaw	Weblog maintained by paralegal Pamela Jones that provides a comprehensive analysis from a legal point of view. Jones first-rate research into less publicized aspects of the case gives visitors a insightful and fresh perspective on the whole controversy.
Guarino, Trink	Spokesperson for IBM. Has made several statements on the SCO case for the company.
H
Hall, Jon 'maddog'	Chairman of Linux International and the "guardian" of the Linux Trademark.
Hellwig, Christoph	Linux kernel contributor and former Caldera employee. Hellwig is cited by Linus Torvalds as saying that it would be too difficult both technically and politically to incorporate SCO Unix code into the Linux kernel.
Heise, Mark	Lawyer for Boies Schiller & Flexner LLP and head lawyer in the SCO vs IBM case. Heise set off a controversy when he revealed that part of his strategy will be to try to get the GNU General Public License declared incompatible with US copyright law.
Heise Online	German news site that published slides of some code that SCO alleged was stolen from them and incorporated into Linux. The slides set off a controversy as they supposedly showed code that had been in the public domain since the 1970's.
I
International Business Machines (IBM)	Technological giant based in Armonk, New York. In the process of being sued by SCO for allegedly taking proprietary Unix code and putting it in the Linux kernel.
J
Jones, Pamela	Maintainer of the website Groklaw. (see Groklaw)
journaling file system (JFS)	A file system that keeps a record of its activity in a 'journal', so to speak. In the event of a system crash, information can be quickly recovered about what files were contained in your hard disk. One of the early allegations of SCO was that Linux could not have developed the capability of using this kind of file system without misappropriating it from Unix code via IBM developers.
K
kernel	Core computer programs of an operating system. Allows hardware to interact with software. The Linux kernel is at the heart of the SCO-IBM lawsuit.
Kimball, Dale	Federal judge for the United States District Court, Utah. Presiding over SCO v. IBM
L
Landley, Rob	Co-author with Eric S. Raymond of the OSI Position Paper on the SCO-vs.-IBM Complaint (see Raymond, Eric S.)
Linux	Name popularly given to the operating system which is made up of programs from the GNU project and other sources bound around the Linux kernel developed by Linus Torvalds.
Love, Ransom	Co-Founder and former Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Caldera (later SCO/Caldera). Presided over the company when they purchased the Unix systems division from The Santa Cruz Operation (aka old SCO) and when UnitedLinux was formed. Ousted in June 2002 and replaced by Darl McBride. (see McBride, Darl)
M
McBride, Darl	Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of The SCO Group (formerly Caldera). McBride took over operations at Caldera in June 2002. He is seen as the "heavy" in the whole SCO-IBM-Linux affair.
Messman, Jack	Former CEO of Novell. Messman widened the controversy when, in May 2003, he issued a statement challenging SCO's claims of ownership of Unix code. He later backed up IBMs claims that their AIX operating system licenses were irrevocable. (see AIX, Novell)
Moglen, Eben	Columbia University law professor, former counsel for the Free Software Foundation and author of the Open Source Development Lab's Position Paper on SCO and Linux. Professor Moglen is perhaps the foremost authority on the GNU General Public License and its application.
N
Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)	A Non-Disclosure Agreement is a document that a party signs that essentially makes him/her promise not to publicly reveal information that a company or individual considers confidential in exchange for letting him/her see it. SCO let various tech analysts see a comparison of SCO Unix source code and Linux code under a Non-Disclosure Agreement. The clauses in SCO's NDA reportedly were so strict that few Linux developers could actually hope to sign them and then continue with their kernel work. (see kernel; Claybrook, Bill; DiDio, Laura; Taylor, Ian Lance and SCO Forum)
Novell	Founded by Jack Messman as as Novell Data Systems Inc. CEO Ray Noorda went on to found Caldera (see Caldera) with Ransom Love. (see Love, Ransom) The company was a pioneer in software and hardware for networks. It acquired the rights to AT&T's Unix source code in 1993. It sold some of the rights to them to The Santa Cruz Operation (aka old SCO) in 1995. Novell still claims it still maintains certain rights over the source code.
O
P
Perens, Bruce	Tech analyst, Open Source luminary and consultant. Was one of the first to post a detailed analysis of the code samples leaked out of SCO Forum (see SCO Forum) in Las Vegas in August 2003.
Q
R
Raymond, Eric S. (aka ESR)	Author, Linux developer and Open Source luminary. Has been working on amicus curiae brief and other documents to contest some of the claims SCO has made. Raymond was accused by Darl McBride (see McBride, Darl) of being on IBM's payroll.
Royal Bank of Canada	Bank that provided 30 million of the 50 million invested in SCO by BayStar Capital. (see BayStar Capital)
S
[The] Santa Cruz Operation (aka old SCO)	Popularly known currently as "old" SCO to distinguish them from what is now The SCO Group. SCO was founded as a Unix consulting company in 1979. SCO produced XENIX, the first Unix operating system for Intel processors. In 1995 SCO acquired Unix system source code from Novell (see Novell). Linux distributor Caldera (see Caldera) acquired the Unix division of SCO in 2000. What is left of The Santa Cruz Operation was renamed Tarantella.
SCO Forum	SCO Forum is a gathering of SCO resellers and developers and SCO's business customers. At the 2003 event in Las Vegas, SCO showed samples of source code allegedly taken from Unix and placed in Linux during a slide show. Someone attending the presentation took photos of the slides and provided them to German website Heise who quickly published them. Open source advocates such as Bruce Perens and others immediately set to tracing the origin of the code. Analysis revealed that the code on the slides were examples of routines developed in the 1970's and were most probably already in the public domain. It was later revealed that the code was not even in useful to the Linux kernel and had been removed. SCO later tried to explain by saying that they were using the samples to show how they looked for the stolen code but not that these actually represented stolen code. (see Heise Online; Perens, Bruce; Unix; Linux)
[The] SCO Group (aka SCO, SCO/Caldera)	Utah-based company at the heart of the SCO-IBM-Linux controversy. The SCO Group is essentially the fusion of Linux developer Caldera with The Santa Cruz Operation's Unix development division of which was acquired by Caldera in 2000.(see Caldera, Tarantella)
Sontag, Chris	SCO Group Vice President and one of the principal spokesmen for the company throughout the whole affair.
Stallman, Richard M. (aka RMS)	Founder of the Free Software Foundation and principal promoter of the GNU project.
SuSE	German Linux distribution company and one of the companies that made up the UnitedLinux (see UnitedLinux) group.
SystemV	Major version of Unix originally developed by AT&T (see AT&T)
T
Tarantella	Remaining non-Unix divisions of The Santa Cruz Operation
Taylor, Ian Lance	The only (at least mentioned publicly) tech analyst sympathetic to the Linux side who signed a non-disclosure agreement to see the alleged stolen SCO Unix code.
Torvalds, Linus	Inventor of the Linux operating system and principal maintainer of the Linux kernel.
TurboLinux	Based in Japan, it is one of the Linux distribution companies that made up the UnitedLinux group (see UnitedLinux).
U
UnitedLinux	Now defunct joint effort to develop a Linux distribution aimed at corporate customers. The partners in th is project were Caldera, SuSE, Turbolinux and Conectiva.
Unix (or UNIX)	Operating system developed originally at AT&T Laboratories. Spun off into different versions (AIX, Solaris, BSD, UnixWare, XENIX) and extremely successful in enterprise settings. SCO claims that through a series of acquisitions over the years, the main part of the Unix code base is owned by them. Linux is considered a Unix-like operating system which mimics some of the operating characteristics of Unix but is not based on Unix code. SCO's main contention is that Unix code has made its way into Linux principally via IBM and they filed suit in March 2003 for breach of contract based on these claims. (see Linux, IBM, The SCO Group, AIX, Novell)
V
W
Wells, Brooke	US magistrate judge presiding over the discovery phase of SCO v. IBM
X
Y
Yarro, Ralph	Chairman of the board and principal shareholder of The SCO Group. Former president of the venture capital firm The Canopy Group.
Z