The Unix wars were the struggles between vendors of the Unix computer operating system in the late 1980s and early 1990s to set the standard for Unix henceforth. These battles are commonly held to have harmed the market acceptance of Unix and created a market gap that allowed the rise of Windows NT. A vendor is one who sells something. ... Jump to: navigation, search It has been suggested that List of Unixes be merged into this article or section. ... Jump to: navigation, search A computer is a device or machine for processing information from data according to a program — a compiled list of instructions. ... Jump to: navigation, search In computing, an operating system (OS) is the system software responsible for the direct control and management of hardware and basic system operations. ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events and trends The 1980s marked an abrupt shift towards more conservative lifestyles after the momentous cultural revolutions which took place in the 1960s and 1970s and the definition of the AIDS virus in 1981. ... Jump to: navigation, search // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... Windows NT is a family of operating systems produced by Microsoft, and was succeeded by Windows 2000 (still based on Windows NT). ...

In the mid-1980s, the two common versions of Unix were BSD, from the University of California at Berkeley, and System V, from AT&T. Both were derived from the earlier Version 7 Unix, but had diverged considerably. (This conflict was also known as the "UNIX wars" to some degree.) Further, each vendor's version of Unix was different to a greater or lesser degree. BSD redirects here; for other uses see BSD (disambiguation). ... The University of California, Berkeley (also known as Cal, UC Berkeley, UCB, or simply Berkeley) is a prestigious, public, coeducational university situated in the foothills of Berkeley, California to the east of San Francisco Bay, overlooking the Golden Gate and its bridge. ... The many divergents of System V System V, previously known as AT&T System V, was one of the versions of the Unix computer operating system. ... Jump to: navigation, search AT&T (formerly an abbreviation for American Telephone and Telegraph) Corporation NYSE: T is an American telecommunications company. ... The Version 7 Unix, the Seventh Edition Unix, was an important early release of the Unix operating system. ...

A group of vendors formed the X/Open standards group in 1984, with the aim of forming compatible open systems. They chose to base their system on Unix. X/Open Company, Ltd. ... Jump to: navigation, search Open Standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1984 is a leap year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Jump to: navigation, search Open systems are computer systems that provide either interoperability, portability, or freedom from proprietary standards, depending on your perspective. ...

X/Open caught AT&T's attention. To increase the uniformity of Unix, AT&T and leading BSD Unix vendor Sun Microsystems started work in 1987 on a unified system. This was eventually released as System V Release 4 (SVR4). Jump to: navigation, search Sun Microsystems (Sun Microsystems, Inc. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

While this decision was applauded by customers and the trade press, other Unix licensees feared Sun would be unduly advantaged. They formed the Open Software Foundation (OSF), who released OSF/1, more closely based on BSD. AT&T and another group of licensees then formed UNIX International. The Open Software Foundation (OSF) was an organization founded in 1988 to create an open standard for an implementation of the Unix operating system. ...

Technical issues soon took a back seat to vicious and public commercial competition between the two competing "open" versions of Unix, with X/Open holding the middle ground.

In 1993, AT&T sold Unix to Novell, who assigned trademark rights to X/Open. In 1996, X/Open and the OSF merged to form the Open Group, whose Single UNIX Specification is now the single standard for proprietary Unix. However, the damage to Unix's market share had been done. Jump to: navigation, search 1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Novell, Inc. ... Jump to: navigation, search 1996 is a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar, and was designated the International Year for the Eradication of Poverty. ... The Open Group is an industry consortium sponsored by IBM, Sun, HP, Hitachi, and Fujitsu for forming de facto-standards in the field of software engineering, in particular APIs. ... Jump to: navigation, search The Single UNIX Specification (SUS) is the collective name of a family of standards for computer operating systems to qualify for the name Unix. The SUS is developed and maintained by the Austin Group, based on earlier work by the IEEE and The Open Group. ... Jump to: navigation, search Proprietary indicates that a party exercises private ownership, control or use over an item of property, usually to the exclusion of other parties. ...

See also

• Open system (computing)
• open standard
• Open format
• Editor war

Jump to: navigation, search Open systems are computer systems that provide either interoperability, portability, or freedom from proprietary standards, depending on your perspective. ... Jump to: navigation, search Open Standards are publicly available specifications for achieving a specific task. ... Jump to: navigation, search An open format is a published specification for storing digital data, usually maintained by a non-proprietary standards organization, and free of legal restrictions on use. ... The editor war is an ongoing debate about which text editor is best. ...

References

• Unix Wars (Living Internet)
• The UNIX Wars (Bell Labs)
• The UNIX System — History and Timeline (The Open Group)
• Unix Standards (Eric S. Raymond, The Art of Unix Programming)
• Chapter 11. OSF and UNIX International (Peter H. Salus, The Daemon, the GNU and the Penguin)
• Forum Debate a lively & informative debate over open vs. closed systems, open vs. closed standards, & vendor lock-in