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In the 1980s I was in the IEEE committee that wrote the standard thatultimately became known as POSIX. The committee set itself the taskof standardizing interface specs for a Unix-like system, but had noshort name for its work. When the first part of the specification wasready, someone gave it the name "IEEEIX", with a subtitle thatincluded "Portable Operating System" — perhaps "Specificationsfor a Portable Operating System".
It seemed to me that nobody would ever say "IEEEIX", since thepronunciation would sound like a shriek of terror; rather, everyonewould call it "Unix". That would have boosted AT&T, the GNUProject's rival, an outcome I did not want. So I looked for anothername, but nothing natural suggested itself to me.
So I put the initials of "Portable Operating System" together with thesame suffix "ix", and came up with "POSIX". It sounded good and I sawno reason not to use it, so I suggested it. Although it was justbarely in time, the committee adopted it.I think the administrators of the committee were as relieved as I wasto give the standard a pronounceable name.
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