De acordo com o Open Group (responsável pelo padrão POSIX):
Each directory has exactly one parent directory which is represented by the name dot-dot in the first directory. [...] What the filename dot-dot refers to relative to the root directory is implementation-defined. In Version 7 it refers to the root directory itself; this is the behavior mentioned in POSIX.1-2008. In some networked systems the construction /../hostname/ is used to refer to the root directory of another host, and POSIX.1 permits this behavior.