Linked by David Adams on Wed 29th Oct 2008 21:04 UTC, submitted by irbis
Would the internet as we know it exist without Linux? "Absolutely not", says Rich Menga. "Where Linux shines the most is in its server applications".
In the 1990's "There were thousands of Mom n' Pop ISPs that operated out of a garage and the vast majority of them were all running Linux. Windows couldn't do it back then and neither could MacOS. What would you have used that you could afford? Netware? Lotus Domino? HP-UX (that requires those refrigerator-sized HP servers)? Linux was literally the only OS out there that had the right price (free), ran similar to a Unix and could use existing computers of the time to connect customers.
The internet as we know it today predominantly runs on Linux. There's an extremely high probability that the internet connection you're using right now is connected through a Linux server - and routed through many other Linux servers along the way."
Thread beginning with comment 335645
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
To view parent comment, click here.
To read all comments associated with this story, please click here.
Recent Original Stories
Recent Comments
Headlines
Random Comments
Random Stories
Random OS Link
Member since:
2005-06-29
And yet there are GPL violations occurring every day at companies too lazy to read the license or too indifferent to care. GPL alone isn't what "saved" linux, it's the will of the masses who write the code and use it daily.
I'm not going to say the GPL is a bad thing; it's a great idea in many ways, but to call it the "most free" license as many of its fans do, is highly inaccurate. It is more restricted than nearly all the other open source licenses out there. I understand that those restrictions are absolutely necessary to maintain the philosophical goals, but to call it Free is a gross misnomer.
Also, your example about BSD licensed code being "stolen" for commercial use hurting the community? Have a look at the single most successful commercial use of BSD itself, Apple's OS X. Not only did a great OS come about, but Apple went above and beyond their legal obligation and opened up the vast majority of the Darwin/Mach code to developers. The only major thing they kept proprietary was their Aqua interface, which is quite understandable and is their right; it's mostly their own original code after all.