Two questions about UNIX(r) certification.

[Chad Perrin]

On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 03:51:34PM -0400, Jerry McAllister wrote:
> On Thu, Oct 18, 2007 at 01:56:05PM -0400, Rob wrote:
> 
> > Dan Mahoney, System Admin wrote:
> > >I recently noticed that Apple's new OS, Leopard, is Unix certified.
> > >I'd imagine that the big reason that FreeBSD hasn't done this yet is: It 
> > >costs a lot of money.
> > 
> > There was a thread on this a month or 3 ago;  might want to check the 
> > archives.  I think the consensus came down to something like:  The 
> > certification is largely irrelevant, self-serving to a couple vendors that 
> > sponsor it, and expensive, so  - why bother?
> 
> Sounds a little like way back when 'Crest" toothpaste used to adversised
> that it was the only one accepted as an effective dentifrice by the
> American Dental Association (I think that was the name they used) when
> they were the only ones who had ever sought the credential and essentially
> made up the category themselves.   After several years some other brand
> finally did it too and then they all quit using it in their advertising.
> 
> So, probably this is only meaningful as long as Apple Spotted Cat OS is
> the only one doing it.    If someone else does it, then it won't be
> worth anything to anyone.

I'm at least aware of the following Single UNIX Specification compliant
OSes:

  AIX
  Darwin[1]
  HP-UX
  MacOS X
  OpenServer
  Solaris
  Tru64 Unix
  UnixWare
  UX/4800
  z/OS

[1]: I'm guessing about Darwin, as a subset of MacOS X that contains all
the bits needed to make a complete Unix-like OS.  It may not be
officially recognized as compliant.

Not all versions of all of those are compliant, of course, but they all
have been or are currently (meaning, in some previous or current release
version) certified SUS compliant.  There are quite a few "Enterprisey"
corporate shops that put a lot of stock in SUS certification, so in terms
of widespread adoption in business environments for server
implementations, it's not something that "won't be worth anything to
anyone".  Whether or not that means it's worth anything to FreeBSD is up
for debate, I suppose.

I find myself wondering if the SUS is losing what technical value it may
have once had.  The fact that MacOS X is certified kinda makes me even
more suspicious of the value of the certification than I was already.

Of course, with the rate at which open source OSes like FreeBSD (and
other BSD Unix systems, and of course Linux distributions) progress, one
must wonder how SUS certification can even be practical in application in
the open source world.  Certification takes time and money, and would
need to be acquired anew for every release version (unless things change
in regard to how certification is applied).  That seems a little outside
the realm of reasonability.

-- 
CCD CopyWrite Chad Perrin [ http://ccd.apotheon.org ]
Isaac Asimov: "Part of the inhumanity of the computer is that, once it is
completely programmed and working smoothly, it is completely honest."