IBM First To Receive UNIX 2003 Certification 167
Hobart writes "Last Wednesday, IBM's AIX was the first to receive the UNIX 2003 certification from The Open Group, beating out Sun, HP, SCO and the rest. No mention anywhere in the branded products register of any Linux/BSD distribution, or Mac OS X. Are any companies still developing software to this certification, or requiring it?"
Standards... (Score:5, Interesting)
No mention anywhere in the branded products register of any Linux/BSD distribution, or Mac OS X. Are any companies still developing software to this certification, or requiring it?"
Companies and groups that are truly interested in standards will care and require it. Unfortunately all Linux distributions and BSD projects are not even close to being a Unix certified product. And the BSD families are much closer than Linux.
MacOSX could be with some cash (which they have lots of) but their target markets aren't hardcore techies, it's graphic designers and iPod buyers.
Re:Standards... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't think Apple would get any real benefit (at least in the short term) from such a certification. They should get into more server rooms first.
What is the point ? (Score:5, Interesting)
As discussed on comp.unix.solaris a few days ago - POSIX specifies (amongst many other things) what various flags passed to uname should produce. AIX (which my collegues and I always referred to as "Aix Ain't Unix" due to it's...ahem...'unique' approach to things) breaks this. So it shouldn't pass strict POSIX conformance testing, yet it passes UNIX03. So, what does this cert mean in reality, given that AIX is one of the most "non-Unixy" systems around anyway ? Who is really going to go for AIX over HP-UX or Solaris just because AIX got a cert ?
Re:Better Working Conditions - More Stable Softwar (Score:5, Interesting)
You have got the wroing impression because IBM is a company that it is extremely strict on requiring every employee to know and use English for internal correspondence and documentation. But it is not an US company at all. In fact Sun is considerably more US. To be more exact it is a combination of Californian Silicon Valley "we are better then everyone" with typical college dropout vindictiveness. DNS, paying SCO, kicking Red Hat under the table, so on so fourth. To summarize - Sun is typical international corporation - it is present around the world, with nearly all directors and administrative personnel of any noticeable influence being American. IBM is and has been trully global for a very long time. At least as far back as the age of typewriters (and the Nazi affair).
Re:Linux ? Right & Wrong (Score:3, Interesting)
Right - BSD is a genuine descendant of the original AT&T Unix. It is a Unix in everything but name. Linux is a completely new clone
The wrong part is about what it takes to be a brand-name UNIX(TM). No descent from AT&T Unix is required and no code simularity is required. The only requirement is that the system meet certain inter-operability standards that are defined in the Unix Specification from Open Group. So a completely new clone like Linux could (theoretically) meet the standard, get certified, and call itself UNIX(TM).
Re:Standards... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Open Group "UNIX(TM)" perverted by greed (Score:3, Interesting)
Why AIX? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Standards... (Score:3, Interesting)
the bitching betweeen the big guys.
Nowadays, we pretty much understand that UNIX is really FreeBSD + Linux +
Sorry SUN, IBM etc but this is the *real* world. We don't want to code for your flakey headers or bleed out because of your incompetence... We've got used to really quick bug fixes flashed across the planet in a way that you guys couldn't even dream of...
I think I screamed enough there. Mac OSX ought to
be higher in most peoples estimation than it is, but the past is still in too many folks heads...
Apple made a lot of wrong moves, and it will take
time to heal those wounds...
If I'm really lucky I may have a mac osx machine here soon. I'm pounding on my colleagues head to get one.. Just so I can run Python on it...
(If I twist his arm enough, perhaps they'll let me
keep one. I still like Mac's, and hot damn it, it's a more robust machine than any crummy windoze box ever will be, not to mention a lot sexier)
(sidenote: the real reason it's sexier is that there's a higher probability that there'e a cute
graphics designer lady I'm borrowing it from...)
We might be an unmarried 45 year old, but we do live here in the med, so we dream on...
I want to apologize to IBM right now, because they
are not the demons they used to be. Jikes etc., are truly beautiful, and we appreciate IBM's contribution...
Re:MS Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
I wonder why MS doesn't get its Server 2003 Unix-certified.
That's the funny thing about Unix. All it takes is a set of syscalls and libraries that would provide userland apps with all required interfaces. Unix is just some kind of virtual machine that userland programs can invoke and expect some kind of behaviour.
So, if Server 2003 implemented all those interfaces, it would effectively be Unix, and could be certified as such.
Now... does it?
C2 is no big deal, let's shoot for B0 (Score:2, Interesting)
was that even in those days the IT bimbos didn't grok the real (engineering) world...
Personally, I roll about the floor laughing every time MS tries to pretend it has a secure system.
If they ripped it down to the basics and made it open source we'd actually *fix* their problems for them. (OK, this isn't a joke). Someone poke Steve B with an umbrella (any Bulgarians at MS?)