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"Google, Facebook Wouldn't Exist Without Linux"
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The Linux Kernel drives over 90 per cent of the world's fastest supercomputers, nearly all of the world's stock exchanges and most of the world's embedded devices.
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Friday, January 27, 2012:
It has almost been 20 years since Linux took off on the information highway. It was in August 1991 that a Finland-based student announced on Usenet that he was developing a free operating system for Intel's 386 processor. The same month, Tim Berners Lee released the first code for what is popularly known as the World Wide Web.
The Linux kernel, which may not be as popular as the Windows one, drives over 90 per cent of the world's fastest supercomputers, nearly all of the world's stock exchanges, most of the world's embedded devices, and is switched on in 60,000 to 70,000 new Android mobile phones every day.
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Linux's prominent distributor Red Hat is reportedly close to $1 billion in value. Moving towards the enterprise front, Linux's strength can be gauged by the fact that Google's massive back-end runs on customised Linux hardware, as does Facebook's.
It also powers game consoles, routers, air traffic control systems and thousands of the largest IBM mainframe installations in the world. The movie CGI industry uses Linux-based systems almost exclusively to render special effects.
"There's nothing else like it, it runs watches to mainframes. No other OS can make that claim. Here you have a piece of technology developed by thousands of people all over the world. Yes, it has taken 20 years to become the most prolific technology out there, but if you look at Google or Facebook, neither would exist without Linux. It has truly changed the world in that way," Muggie van Staden, managing director, local Linux provider Obsidian Systems was quoted by ITWeb as saying.
One of the most notable things about Linux and the rest of the free software is that it's always been free to use, copy, modify and distribute under the terms of its licence: the GNU General Public Licence. Several developers in massive numbers have contributed to GPL-licensed code, including many thousands on the Linux kernel itself, transforming it from the hobbyist project it was in 1991 to the enterprise powerhouse it is today. Companies like Red Hat make their money selling subscriptions, not site licences. Others have contributed code and money because Linux is a level-playing field for innovation.
Naturally, this attitude has appealed to the attention of the powerful blocks over the last two decades. IBM decided in 1999 that Linux was its friend. It righteously understood that Linux would help it sell more hardware and services. Contrary to this, Microsoft decided to go the anti-Linux way and as such has spent hundreds of millions of dollars fighting it, to little avail, except perhaps on the desktop.
To read about-
Open Source Malware Analysis tool, click here
Top 10 Open Source Projects You Missed, click here
Red Hat Enterprise MRG 2.1 Comprises Kernel 3.0, click here
Priy Pandit, EFYTIMES News Network
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