X / Open

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

X / Open was a consortium of manufacturers and users of Unix systems with the aim of further developing Unix into an open system, i.e. to standardize the application software available for Unix and to make common interfaces available for it. This should avoid the dependency of Unix users on systems and computers from certain providers, improve the interoperability of different applications and make porting of software easier. In 1996 the X / Open consortium merged with the Open Software Foundation to form the Open Group .

history

The consortium was founded in 1984. Its founding members were the European companies Bull , ICL , Siemens , Olivetti and Nixdorf ; this group was named after the acronym BISON formed from the first letters of the company . After Philips and Ericsson later joined the consortium, the group adopted the name X / Open .

The consortium published its specifications under the name X / Open Portability Guide (XPG). The first edition of the specifications ( XPG1 ) 1984 concerned basic interfaces of the Unix operating system . XPG2 from 1987 dealt with internationalization , interprocess communication as well as the programming languages C , Cobol , Fortran , Pascal , the declarative query language SQL and the data access method ISAM . XPG3 followed in 1988; its primary goal was to bring about convergence with the POSIX operating system specifications.

By 1990 the number of members rose to 21; the other companies in addition to the previous, purely European seven, were AT&T , Digital , Unisys , Hewlett-Packard , IBM , NCR , Sun Microsystems , Prime Computer , Apollo Computers from North America; Fujitsu , Hitachi , NEC from Japan; also the Open Software Foundation and Unix International .

X / Open held the rights to the brand name UNIX ® from 1993 to 1996 ; after the merger with the Open Software Foundation , the rights were transferred to the successor organization Open Group .

literature

  • CB Taylor. The X / OPEN group and the common application environment . ICL Technical Journal Vol 5 (4) pages 665-679, 1987. (English)
  • CB Taylor. X / Open - from strength to strength . ICL Technical Journal, Vol 7 (3) pages 565-583, 1991 (English)

Web links