De acordo com a especificação POSIX :
The system may provide non-standard extensions. These are features not required by POSIX.1-2008 and may include, but are not limited to:
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- Non-conforming file systems (for example, legacy file systems for which _POSIX_NO_TRUNC is false, case-insensitive file systems, or network file systems)
- snip -
Portanto, parece que a diferenciação entre maiúsculas e minúsculas é a norma, mas é possível suportar um sistema de arquivos não-compatível (sem distinção entre maiúsculas e minúsculas) e ainda chamar seu produto UNIX, desde que ele também possa suportar sistemas de arquivos sensíveis a maiúsculas e minúsculas. / p>
(editar)
Na verdade, veja esta parte da especificação :
Two proposals were entertained regarding case folding in filenames:
- Remove all wording that previously permitted case folding.
Rationale
Case folding is inconsistent with the portable filename character set and filename definitions (all bytes except <slash> and null). No known implementations allowing all bytes except <slash> and null also do case folding.
- Change "though this practice is not recommended:" to "although this practice is strongly discouraged."
Rationale
If case folding must be included in POSIX.1, the wording should be stronger to discourage the practice.
The consensus selected the first proposal. Otherwise, a conforming application would have to assume that case folding would occur when it was not wanted, but that it would not occur when it was wanted.
Então parece que é propositadamente deixado ambíguo - não é explicitamente permitido nem proibido.