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Asked: 2026-05-13T13:34:53+00:00

I have searched hard but still confused why POSIX is called Portable Operating System

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I have searched hard but still confused why POSIX is called “Portable Operating System Interface”, what I learned is that it is some threading library for Unix environment, because when you need to use it under windows you have to use cygwin or “Windows Services of Unix”, etc. That’s why I am confused why it is called Portable OSIX. I am a professional C/C++ programmer in Windows domain but new in Unix/Linux. Thanks for your answers in advance.

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  1. Editorial Team

    Before Posix, the Unix family tree was becoming very diverse and incompatible. A program written for one Unix was not compatible with a different Unix without significant porting effort.

    Posix was one of the attempts to present a common set of utilities and programming interfaces so that your software would be portable to multiple versions of Unix.

    Since Posix is about the interface and not the actual OS, it is possible to have a Posix facade on a non Unix OS (such as the Microsoft Windows Services for Unix presenting a Posix facade on top of Windows).

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