The Open Group is a vendor- and technology-neutral industry consortium, with over five hundred member organizations. It was formed in 1996 when X/Open merged with the Open Software Foundation. Services provided include: strategy, management, innovation and research, standards, certification, and test development.
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The Open Group is the certifying body for the UNIX trademark, and publishes the Single UNIX Specification technical standard, which extends the POSIX standards. The Open Group also develops and manages the TOGAF standard, which is an industry standard enterprise architecture framework.
The Open Group members include a range of IT buyers and vendors, as well as government agencies and others (for example: Capgemini, Fujitsu, Oracle, HPE, Orbus Software, IBM, Huawei, Philips, US Department of Defense, NASA).
History
By the early 1990s, the major UNIX system vendors had begun to realize that the standards rivalries (often termed as the Unix wars) were causing all participants more harm than good, leaving the UNIX industry open to emerging competition from Microsoft. The COSE initiative in 1993 can be considered to be the first unification step and the merger of the Open Software Foundation (OSF) and X/Open in 1996 as the ultimate step in the end of those skirmishes. OSF had previously merged with UNIX International in 1994, meaning that the new entity effectively represented all elements of the Unix community of the time.
In January 1997, the responsibility for the X Window System was transferred to The Open Group from the defunct X Consortium. In 1999, X.Org was formed to manage the X Window System, with management services provided by The Open Group. The X.Org members made a number of releases up to and including X11R6.8 while The Open Group provided management services. In 2004, X.Org and The Open Group worked together to establish the newly formed X.Org Foundation who then took control of the x.org domain name, and the stewardship of the X Window System. (See the history of the X Window System.)
Certification
The Open Group's best-known services are their certification programs, including certification for products and best practices: POSIX, North American State Lotteries Association (NASPL), and UNIX.
The Open Group offers certifications for IT professionals. In addition to the TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) certification which covers tools, services and people certification, The Open Group also administers the Open Group Certified Architect (Open CA) program and the Open Group Certified IT Specialist (Open CITS) certification program; the latter are skills and experience based certification programs. The Open Group also offers certification for ArchiMate tools and people, as well as people certification for Open FAIR and IT4IT.
Member Forums
The Open Group provides a platform for its members to discuss their requirements, and work jointly on development and adoption of industry standards, to facilitate enterprise integration. (Note: Some of The Open Group documents are only available to members, especially when they are under development.) Based on their area of interest, members can join one or more semi-autonomous forums, which include:
Members come together at The Open Group’s quarterly events and member meetings.
Collaboration Services
The Open Group also provides a range of services to consortia and organizations, from initial organization set-up and ongoing operational support to collaboration, standards and best practices development, and assistance with market impact activities. They assist organizations with setting business objectives, strategy and procurement, and also provide certification and test development services. This includes services to the government sector agencies, suppliers, and companies or organizations set up by governments to advance government goals.