“There is no doubt that there is a deep-felt resentment that
Microsoft has a monopoly on PC operating systems and that any
alternative, if not better than DOS, Windows or NT, would at least
serve as a stick with which to beat the world’s largest software
company. But this is not the first time there has been a challenge
to Microsoft’s supremacy or that Unix has been heralded as an
alternative to DOS, Windows et al.
Linux is the latest manifestation of a decades-old drive to
prove that operating systems and applications are portable across a
range of machines, providing a version of Unix is used. IBM spent
years ignoring Unix because it made so much money out of its
proprietary operating systems until it was finally dragged kicking
and screaming to the open systems table.”