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From: decot@hpisod2.cup.hp.com (Dave Decot)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Open Systems -- Who coined the term?
Message-ID: <10650110@hpisod2.cup.hp.com>
Date: 27 Mar 91 01:27:28 GMT
References: <1991Mar25.135520.29496@searchtech.com>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino
Lines: 36

> 	I've got a friend who's trying to find the article in which the
> term "open systems" is invented and defined.  He's writing a paper on
> the history of UNIX.  Anyone know who deserves the credit for this
> term?

_X/Open Portability Guide_ (now identified as Issue 1, one volume,
published by Elsevier Science Publishers, B.V.; Amsterdam; in July,
1985) contains the earliest mention of this term I have been able to find.

The fourth paragraph of Page 1.1 uses the term "Open Systems" in an
introductory sense after vaguely defining it in the third paragraph:

    The objective shared by the members of the X/OPEN Group is to
    establish a Common Applications Environment to the mutual advantage
    of users, Independent Software Vendors and computer suppliers.
    Applications written to operate in this environment will be portable
    at the source code level to a wide range of machines, thereby
    releasing the user from dependence on a single supplier, reducing
    the necessary investment in applications, considerably increasing
    the market for independent software and opening up the market for
    systems suppliers.

    The existence of these "Open Systems" allows users to mix and match
    systems from different suppliers, and to move applications between
    machines to meet changing requirements as business grows, thereby
    giving protection of investment in applications software into the
    future.

This text is replicated unchanged in all five volumes of _XPG_ Issue 2 (1987),
but does not appear at all in _XPG_ Issue 3 (1989).

Excerpt Copyright (c) 1985 The X/OPEN Group Members.  This copyright is
now owned by X/Open Company, Ltd.  Small excerpt quoted without permission.

Dave Decot, HP
decot@hpda.hp.com