Summary
This chapter highlighted the main events that show how the different versions of UNIX have evolved and where specific pieces of technology have come from. The history of UNIX could fill a book by itself. Indeed, Peter Salus' book A Quarter Century of UNIX [SALU96] describes UNIX history from 1969 to 1994.
Programmers wishing to follow UNIX standards should adhere to the Single UNIX Specification when striving for application compatibility across all the major versions of UNIX. Although Linux does not comply completely with the specification, most interfaces are supported. At a very minimum, the POSIX interfaces are supported by just about every operating system, UNIX and non-UNIX alike.
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