Background: The MPI Standard

The MPI specification was developed by the MPI Forum, a group of software developers, computer vendors, academics, and computer-science researchers whose goal was to develop a standard for writing message-passing programs that would be efficient, flexible, and portable.

The outcome, known as the MPI Standard, was first published in 1993; its most recent version (MPI-2) was published in July 1997. It was well received, and there are several implementations available publicly.