The Business Times: When Giants Battle in the Name of Linux

"In the jungle, the mighty IT jungle, the Linux deer sleeps tonight--with the IBM elephant, the HP lion, the Sun tiger and now the Oracle gorilla. Poor deer, she couldn't say no; after all, she was born to be Open and Free.

"Such is the irony of the world's best-known free Open Source software. When in 1991, Helsinki University student Linus Torvalds created what became the Linux operating system (OS), it was an act of rebellion against the IT giants who were raking in millions of dollars a year from their closely protected operating systems and application software. Mr Torvalds put his creation on the Internet so that anyone could download it for free--and millions did..."

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Related Stories:

• IT Manager's Journal: VCs Size Up Open Source Challenges and Opportunities(Jun 23, 2004)
• Update: Washington Post: Showdown With The Linux Gang(Jun 10, 2004)
• Brown, Tanenbaum Spar Over Samizdat(Jun 08, 2004)