LinuxWorld.com.au: What’s Linux without Microsoft?

“For some in the open source community, the forces of
software development have come to resemble the age-old paradox of
Yin and Yang, which states that light does not exist without dark
and there is no good without evil.

According to luminaries who subscribe to this philosophy, and
who spoke about it last week in San Francisco at the LinuxWorld
Conference and Expo, the mere presence of Microsoft Corp. has
played a big role in the development of the Linux operating system
and other open-source projects. Indeed, for some there could be no
Linux without Microsoft.

‘This balance of action and counter action is absolutely
critical,’ said Dirk Hohndel, the co-creator of the XFree86 open
source project and former chief technology officer at Linux
distributor SuSE Linux AG. ‘It makes people innovate.'”

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