What is UNIX ®?
The Open Group holds the definition of what a UNIX system is and its associated trademark in trust for the industry. In 1994 Novell (who had acquired the UNIX systems business of AT&T/USL) decided to get out of that business. Rather than sell the business as a single entity, Novell transferred the rights to the UNIX trademark and the specification (that subsequently became the Single UNIX Specification) to The Open Group (at the time X/Open Company). Subsequently, it sold the source code and the product implementation (UNIXWARE) to SCO. The Open Group also owns the trademark UNIXWARE, transferred to them from SCO more recently. Today, the definition of UNIX ® takes the form of the worldwide Single UNIX Specification integrating X/Open Company’s XPG4, IEEE’s POSIX Standards and ISO C. Through continual evolution, the Single UNIX Specification is the defacto and dejure standard definition for the UNIX system application programming interfaces. As the owner of the UNIX trademark, The Open
