The Portable Operating System Interface (POSIX; IPA: /ˈpɒz.ɪks/) is a family of standards specified by the IEEE Computer Society for maintaining compatibility between operating systems. POSIX defines application programming interfaces (APIs), along with command line shells and utility interfaces, for software compatibility (portability) with variants of Unix and other operating systems. POSIX is also a trademark of the IEEE. POSIX is intended to be used by both application and system developers. As of POSIX 2024, the standard is aligned with the C17 language standard.