Open system (computing)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Open systems are

computer systems that provide some combination of interoperability, portability, and open software standards
. (It can also refer to specific installations that are configured to allow unrestricted access by people and/or other computers; this article does not discuss that meaning).

The term was popularized in the early 1980s, mainly to describe systems based on

Hitachi
going to court for the right to sell systems and peripherals that were compatible with IBM's mainframes.

The definition of "open system" can be said to have become more formalized in the 1990s with the emergence of independently administered software standards such as The Open Group's Single UNIX Specification.

Although computer users today are used to a high degree of both hardware and software interoperability, in the 20th century the open systems concept could be promoted by Unix vendors as a significant differentiator. IBM and other companies resisted the trend for decades, exemplified by a now-famous warning in 1991 by an IBM account executive that one should be "careful about getting locked into open systems".[1]

However, in the first part of the 21st century many of these same legacy system vendors, particularly IBM and

Solaris
software products.

See also

  • Open API
  • Open format
  • Open mainframe
  • Open System Environment Reference Model
  • Unix wars

References

  1. ^ Ian Dickinson (1991-07-11). "Open Systems Strategy from IBM". Newsgroupcomp.unix.misc. Retrieved 2006-08-13.