©October 2002, The Open Group All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owners.

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Preface

The Open Group

The Open Group, a vendor and technology-neutral consortium, is committed to delivering greater business efficiency by bringing together buyers and suppliers of information technology to lower the time, cost, and risks associated with integrating new technology across the enterprise.

The Open Group's mission is to offer all organizations concerned with open information infrastructures a forum to share knowledge, integrate open initiatives, and certify approved products and processes in a manner in which they continue to trust our impartiality.

In the global eCommerce world of today, no single economic entity can achieve independence while still ensuring interoperability. The assurance that products will interoperate with each other across differing systems and platforms is essential to the success of eCommerce and business workflow. The Open Group, with its proven testing and certification program, is the international guarantor of interoperability in the new century.

The Open Group provides opportunities to exchange information and shape the future of IT. The Open Group's members include some of the largest and most influential organizations in the world. The flexible structure of The Open Group's membership allows for almost any organization, no matter what their size, to join and have a voice in shaping the future of the IT world.

More information is available on The Open Group web site at http://www.opengroup.org.

The Open Group has over 15 years' experience in developing and operating certification programs and has extensive experience developing and facilitating industry adoption of test suites used to validate conformance to an open standard or specification. The Open Group portfolio of test suites includes the Westwood family of tests and the associated certification program for Version 3 of the Single UNIX Specification, as well tests for CDE, CORBA, Motif, Linux, LDAP, POSIX.1, POSIX.2, POSIX Realtime, Sockets, UNIX, XPG4, XNFS, XTI, and X11. The Open Group test tools are essential for proper development and maintenance of standards-based products, ensuring conformance of products to industry-standard APIs, applications portability, and interoperability. In-depth testing identifies defects at the earliest possible point in the development cycle, saving costs in development and quality assurance.

More information is available at http://www.opengroup.org/testing.

The Open Group publishes a wide range of technical documentation, the main part of which is focused on development of Technical and Product Standards and Guides, but which also includes white papers, technical studies, branding and testing documentation, and business titles. Full details and a catalog are available at http://www.opengroup.org/pubs.

As with all live documents, Technical Standards and Specifications require revision to align with new developments and associated international standards. To distinguish between revised specifications which are fully backwards-compatible and those which are not:

• A new Version indicates there is no change to the definitive information contained in the previous publication of that title, but additions/extensions are included. As such, it replaces the previous publication.

• A new Issue indicates there is substantive change to the definitive information contained in the previous publication of that title, and there may also be additions/extensions. As such, both previous and new documents are maintained as current publications.

Readers should note that Corrigenda may apply to any publication. Corrigenda information is published at http://www.opengroup.org/corrigenda.

Full catalog and on-line ordering information on all Open Group publications is available at http://www.opengroup.org/pubs.

How to Use this Guide

This Guide is designed primarily for those who wish to apply for the Open Brand. It is also of value to those who, for procurement purposes, wish to examine the requirements and establish the exact terms for Product Certification.

For readers unfamiliar with the Open Brand, we recommend reading Introduction, referring as necessary to the individual chapters for explanation of Product Standards, Conformance Statements, Indicators of Compliance, Testing, and so on.

Suppliers familiar with the Open Brand will go straight to How to Certify a Product under the Open Brand Program, referring to the other chapters for the detail as necessary.

Information is maintained on The Open Group web site at www.opengroup.org/openbrand where readers can find a glossary of terms. Between this Guide and the web site, you will find everything you need.

A summary of external references is given below:

www.opengroup.org/openbrand	Starting point
www.opengroup.org/publications/catalog/x982.htm	Trademark License Agreement (TMLA)
www.opengroup.org/regproducts	Register of Open Brand Certified Products
www.opengroup.org/prodstandards	Current Product Standards
www.opengroup.org/publications	Catalog of specifications and other publications
www.opengroup.org/togaf	Architecture Framework
www.opengroup.org/sib	Standards Information Base
www.opengroup.org/testing	Testing-technology information
www.opengroup.org/testing/checklist	Product Certification Checklists
www.opengroup.org/csq	Conformance Statements and Conformance Statement Questionnaires (CSQs)
www.opengroup.org/corrigenda	Publications Corrigenda
www.opengroup.org/interpretations	Interpretations/Temporary Waiver process
www.opengroup.org/interpretations/database	Interpretations Database

For queries regarding the documentation and help through the certification process, contact conformance@opengroup.org.

The following email addresses can be used for specific enquiries:

conformance@opengroup.org	Reaches Conformance Administration, your first point of reference on all aspects of Product Certification.
ogpubs@opengroup.org	For queries about specifications and publications.
webmaster@opengroup.org	For web access problems.
helpdesk@opengroup.org	For more general questions.