Unified Process

The Unified Process is not simply a process, but rather an extensible framework which should be customized for specific organizations or projects. The Rational Unified Process is, similarly, a customizable framework. As a result, it is often impossible to say whether a refinement of the process was derived from UP or from RUP, and so the names tend to be used interchangeably.

The name Unified Process as opposed to Rational Unified Process is generally used to describe the generic process, including those elements which are common to most refinements. The Unified Process name is also used to avoid potential issues of trademark infringement since Rational Unified Process and RUP are trademarks of IBM. The first book to describe the process was titled The Unified Software Development Process and published in 1999 by Ivar Jacobson, Grady Booch and James Rumbaugh. Since then various authors unaffiliated with Rational Softwarehave published books and articles using the name Unified Process, whereas authors affiliated with Rational Software have favored the name Rational Unified Process.