Features

The Linux wars

Does Linux suffer because of its many flavours? Would it benefit from a single reference specification, or would that kill innovation, limit choice and cause violent bloodshed?

01 July 2008

The 1990s was the decade of the Unix wars. Multiple competing but incompatible 'flavours' of Unix made IT managers reluctant to commit to a choice. This was a major problem, and despite fielding inferior products, competitors were able to capitalise richly on the balkanisation of Unix.

These wars largely ended when the Open Group was established in 1996 out of the merger of the two main standards bodies, X/Open and the Open Software Foundation. It developed and administered, among other 'open standards', the Single Unix Specification. Recently, even Apple's OS X joined the likes of IBM's AIX, Sun's Solaris and HP's HP-UX among the ranks of certified Unix operating systems.

ITWeb Premium

Get 3 months of unlimited access
No credit card. No obligation.

Already a subscriber Log in