The Open Group

The Open Group is a global consortium that helps businesses reach their goals. It creates open technology standards that no single company controls. The group has over 900 member organizations. It offers services like planning help, project management, encouraging new ideas, research, creating standards, certification, and developing tests.

The group began in 1996 when two other groups, X/Open and the Open Software Foundation, joined together. It certifies the use of the UNIX trademark and publishes the Single UNIX Specification. This adds to the POSIX standards. The Open Group also creates and manages the TOGAF standard. This is a popular way for companies to organize their technology plans, known as an enterprise architecture framework.

Members

The Open Group has over 900 members. These members include technology companies, buyers, and government agencies. Some well-known members are Capgemini, Fujitsu, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, IBM, the United States Department of Defense, and NASA. Members do not have to use the standards created by the group.

Some of the top, or Platinum, members are:

1. DXC Technology, United States
2. Fujitsu, Japan
3. Huawei Technologies, China
4. IBM, United States
5. Intel, United States
6. OpenText, Canada
7. Shell, Netherlands

History

See also: X Window System § History

In the early 1990s, companies that made UNIX computers realized that competing against each other was not good for anyone. This allowed new competition from Microsoft. In 1993, a group called COSE tried to bring everyone together. Finally, in 1996, two big groups, the Open Software Foundation and X/Open, joined to form The Open Group. This united all the different parts of the Unix community.

In 1997, The Open Group took over responsibility for the X Window System, which helps manage computer graphics. In 1999, a new group called X.Org was formed to handle the X Window System, with The Open Group helping with management. In 2004, X.Org and The Open Group created the X.Org Foundation, which took control of the X Window System and its website.

Programs

The Open Group has many programs to check if technology products and practices meet certain standards. Some of these checks are for POSIX, UNIX, and O-TTPS.

The Open Group also gives special certificates to people who know a lot about certain technologies. These include certificates for experts in tools, services, data science, and technical skills. They also help companies work together better and follow good practices.

Inventions and standards

The Open Group has made many important rules and guides to help businesses and technology work better together. Some of these include the ArchiMate Technical standard, the Call Level Interface which helped create ODBC, and the Single UNIX Specification. They also made guides like TOGAF to help companies plan their technology, and the Future Airborne Capability Environment for airplane technology.

Other useful rules they made are the Common Desktop Environment for computer interfaces, the Distributed Computing Environment which helped build DCOM, and the Open Information Security Maturity Model to help protect information. These rules make it easier for different technologies to work well together.