According to sources at the highest level, the Santa Cruz Operation Inc has bitten the ideological bullet, and is prepared to step out on the Unix System V.4 road – if it can cut the deal it wants with Unix owner Unix System Laboratories Inc. Santa Cruz, which got its Unix System V.3.2 licence relatively cheaply, is apparently trying to win concessions from Unix Labs in return for its endorsement of System V.4, bringing to the party its Unix-on-Intel base that would give Unix Labs a commanding share of the overall market. However sources say Santa Cruz finds doing business with Unix Labs like running into a brick wall. Unix Labs is apparently unwilling to budge on standard pricing, knowing full well that Santa Cruz is trying to pull together an agreement for System V.4 by the time of its showpiece Santa Cruz Forum in Santa Cruz this week. Other sources say that even if Santa Cruz does manage to cut a deal for System V.4 – leaving OSF/1, the other possible route, by the wayside – its future intent is to move to a micro-kernel architecture, and which version of that it might go for still hasn’t been decided. If System V.4 is adopted, it’s unclear whether Santa Cruz would start with its existing V.3.2.4 implementation and add System V.4.2 features, or start with System V.4.2 and add backwards compatibility with its Unix and Xenix offerings. Santa Cruz says that it will get an SCO V.3.2.5 product on the market before a System V.4 offering is made available.
