UNIX System Home  •   The Single UNIX Specification  •   UNIX 03  •   UNIX V7  •   Mailing Lists  •   White Papers

The Single UNIX Specification, Version 3

Overview Paper

XBD Contents

XSH Contents

XCU Contents

XRAT Contents

XCURSES Contents

The Austin Group

ISO/IEC 9945

IEEE Std 1003.1

The Authorized Guide Book

Interface Tables (pdf)

Migration Guide (pdf)

Index

The Open Group announces completion of the joint revision to POSIX® and the Single UNIX® Specification

San Francisco, CA - January 30 2002- The Open Group announced today completion of the joint revision to POSIX® and the Single UNIX® Specification. The new standard is now available at http://www.UNIX-systems.org/version3/in keeping with The Open Group's policy of open and free access to its standards.

The joint revision forms the core of The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification Version 3, and is IEEE Std 1003.1-2001 (POSIX.1)

This development has combined both the industry-led efforts and the formal standardization activities into a single initiative under the Austin Group, currently chaired by The Open Group's Andrew Josey, and has included a wide spectrum of participants from industry, academia, government and the open source community.

"The Open Group congratulates the members of the Austin Group for reaching this land-mark integration of formal and industry standards," said Allen Brown, President and CEO of The Open Group.  "Even more remarkable in this standards world is that they made their final deliverable on time, as predicted three years ago when the initiative commenced."

"Sun Microsystems welcomes and supports the combined revision of the IEEE POSIX specification and The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification. Through industry adoption of these standards, source level compatibility of applications for all UNIX systems will be that much more achievable to the benefit of users around the globe." said Andrew Roach, Director of Solaris Engineering at Sun Microsystems.

"We applaud the IEEE and The Open Group for making the standard freely available on the web. Free availability ensures that this standard does not become academic shelfware and will increase the adoption of it in the community."said Andrew Josey, Chair of the Austin Group.

"The new revision of the POSIX and The Open Group standard is the most significant development in the standards field for ten years. And considering its size and importance, it was produced in record time. To be able to write once and adopt in three different bodies effectively simultaneously is a major win for everyone" said Nick Stoughton, the USENIX Association's Standards Representative.

"I have been actively involved in the development of the Austin Group specification, and we have been implementing the specification in the latest glibc versions" said Ulrich Drepper, maintainer of the GNU C library. "I welcome the availability of the free html version, it is sure to become valuable reference for the free software community."

"QNX welcomes the timely merger of the IEEE POSIX specification and The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification," said Peter van der Veen, chief architect at QNX Software Systems. "Growing support for this specification will benefit developers immensely, since it allows them to choose the best OS for the job at hand, without having to rewrite their entire code base or change their programming model."

For more information, please visit http://www.opengroup.org/austin

About The Open Group

The Open Group, a vendor-neutral and technology-neutral consortium, is committed to delivering greater business efficiency by bringing together buyers and suppliers of information technology to lower the time, cost and risks associated with integrating new technology across the enterprise. The Open Group's mission is to offer all organizations concerned with open information infrastructures a forum where they can share knowledge, integrate open initiatives, and certify approved products and processes in a manner in which they continue to trust our impartiality. More information on our organization can be found at http://www.opengroup.org/

About The Austin Group specification

The combining of the IEEE POSIX specifications and the Single UNIX Specification replace the existing IEEE Std 1003.1, 1996 version, IEEE Standard for POSIX--Part 1: System Application: Program Interface (API) [C Language], and IEEE Std 1003.2, 1992 version, IEEE Standard for POSIX--Part 2: Shell and Utilities, and The Open Group Base specifications for the Single UNIX Specification, Version 2.  The new standard has also been submitted for ISO/IEC approval.

About The Single UNIX Specification

The Open Group has been the custodian of the specification for the UNIX system and the trademark since 1993. The effort that led to this transfer was the catalyst for all vendors to make their systems conform to this single definition, a goal that had been elusive in previous harmonization efforts. Today all the major vendors support the Single UNIX Specification and have registered product. For information on registered products see http://www.opengroup.org/regproducts/.

For more information on the UNIX system and the UNIX certification program see the UNIX system web site at http://www.UNIX-systems.org.

For more information on version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification, please refer to http://www.UNIX-systems.org/version3/

Note to editors: UNIX is a registered trademark The Open Group in the US and other countries.

Contact: Adam Cargill

Marketing Communications

The Open Group

1 650 323-7992, ext 225

a.cargill@opengroup.org