Some 14 months after the launch of its first product, the UnitedLinux consortium has finally come to an end. The consortium consisted of Caldera (now SCO), Conectiva, Suse (now a division of Novell) and TurboLinux.

Experts said the demise was inevitable after SCO embarked on its well-publicised strategy of suing end-users and distributors of Linux for alleged intellectual property infringements.

SCO had not resigned from its position in the UnitedLinux group even after it threatened fellow members with legal action. Richard Seibt, former Suse chief executive and now president of Novell's Suse business unit, broke the news about UnitedLinux. He said SCO's position made the UnitedLiniux project untenable. "There is no value in this relationship," he said. Suse, however, will work separately with UnitedLinux members TurboLinux and Conectiva."

The UnitedLinux consortium was originally welcomed by many leading figures, and its launch was sponsored by industry giants HP and IBM.

The consortium was seen by many as an attempt to produce a single Linux distribution that would be promoted by the various UnitedLinux partners in their respective territories. The software was to be supported for more years than is common for the more ubiquitous desktop Linux distributions, and customers were expected to benefit from this pooling of resources. However, the group lost momentum after SCO sued IBM at the beginning of 2003.

Gary Barnett of analyst firm Ovum said that UnitedLinux had been disintegrating for about a year, due to the dominance of Red Hat and Suse in the Linux marketplace.