“Psssstt! Wanna a good, reliable operating system on the
cheap? Thing is, you just can’t tell your boss about it.“
“This is a story about programmers and systems administrators
who, by and large, don’t want to speak on the record because
they’re afraid of being fired. They’re smugglers who sneak
unapproved operating systems into corporate offices without telling
upper management. These activities aren’t in the same league as
gunrunning or drug trafficking, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get
fired for doing them.”
“In many cases, the unapproved operating systems are the
so-called open-source systems, which come with all of the source
code, so that a programmer can rewrite them as much as he wants.
These versions, with names like Debian GNU/Linux, FreeBSD or Red
Hat Linux, are produced by loosely knit groups of programmers who
contribute their code into a vast commonwealth of software that can
be freely shared. The members contribute what they can and have the
freedom to improve the code.”
Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.
LinuxToday is a trusted, contributor-driven news resource supporting all types of Linux users. Our thriving international community engages with us through social media and frequent content contributions aimed at solving problems ranging from personal computing to enterprise-level IT operations. LinuxToday serves as a home for a community that struggles to find comparable information elsewhere on the web.
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