Revisions to the UML

The earliest public release of what came to be the UML was version 0.8 of the Unified Method, which was released for OOPSLA in October 1995. This was the work of Booch and Rumbaugh, as Jacobson did not join Rational until around that time. In 1996, Rational released versions 0.9 and 0.91, which included Jacobson's work. After the latter version, they changed the name to the UML.

Rational and a group of partners submitted version 1.0 of the UML to the OMG Analysis and Design Task Force in January 1997. Subsequently, the Rational partnership and the other submitters combined their work and submitted a single proposal for the OMG standard in September 1997, for version 1.1 of the UML. This was adopted by the OMG toward the end of 1997. However, in a fit of darkest obfuscation, the OMG called this standard version 1.0. So, now the UML was both OMG version 1.0 and Rational version 1.1, not to be confused with Rational 1.0. In practice, everyone calls that standard version 1.1.

From then on, there were a number of further developments in the UML. UML 1.2 appeared in 1998, 1.3 in 1999, 1.4 in 2001, and 1.5 in 2002. Most of the changes between the 1.x versions were fairly deep in the UML, except for UML 1.3, which caused some very visible changes, especially to use cases and activity diagrams.

As the UML 1 series continued, the developers of the UML set their sights on a major revision to the UML with UML 2. The first RFPs (Request for Proposals) were issued in 2000, but UML 2 didn't start to properly stabilize until 2003.

Further developments in the UML will almost certainly occur. The UML Forum (http://uml-forum.com) is usually a good place to look for more information. I also keep some UML information on my site (http://martinfowler.com).