What goes around comes around.

What a tangled web we weave.

* The first successful PC Operating System: CP/M - developed by Digital Research.

* Microsoft muscles DR out of play with IBM. MS signs with IBM even though they didn't have an OS. MS finds an OS. MSDOS, PCDOS takes over the world with help from IBM.

* Novell Data Systems is born and Jack Messman worked for the Venture Capital company that funded Novell. Jack hires Superset, the brains behind NetWare. Jack helped find Ray Noorda for Novell.

* Novell buys AT&T Unix. Develops UnixWare.

* Ray Noorda, CEO of Novell is obsessed with beating Microsoft. He buys the Digital Research company and acquires CP/M and DRDOS.

* Ray Noorda leaves Novell. Ray Noorda becomes a venture capitalist and funds a new company called Caldera.

* Novell sells CP/M, DRDOS, and UnixWare to Caldera.

* Caldera becomes SCO.

* SCO goes after IBM and Novell, and others saying that Linux contains some of their code from Unix acquired from Novell.

* Microsoft secretly funds SCO to fuel this lawsuit.

* Novell merges with Cambridge. The president of Cambridge - Surprise - Jack Messman becomes CEO of Novell.

* Novell should've kept UnixWare. Novell buys some Linux companies, Ximian and SUSE.

Ironic isn't it? Novell had a linux type of OS, sold it to a company funded by the former CEO of Novell, then gets sued by the same company.

Book: The Plot to Get Bill Gates

The History of Novell as told by Jack Messman

Dissecting Microsoft