The most-important thing about Linux is that it
does run on over 20 different platforms, literally from a phone to a supercomputer and everything in-between ... and it really is the
same system. The only thing that's different are the compiler options and the
/arch directory.
Because the source-code
is open, and legally cannot be closed, this enables the most-powerful idea that anyone in software development has ever come up with to control costs and to expand possibilities:
"cooperative software development." If it isn't exactly what
you need, you can change it without being sued,
and you can share it without being sued. In this way, the next guy doesn't have to start from scratch. Your hardware engineers can tailor the system to
exactly drive whatever new geegaw they've come up with, without also being obliged to produce a "one-of-a-kind 'rest of it.'"
Revolutionary!!
This is an illustration of how the "SCO Unix-copyright" people (
http://www.groklaw.net) "simply didn't
get it."
(And their clever lawyers were careful not to correct their misconceptions until they were sure that all their client's money was gone ...) The fundamental reason why Linux is what it is, is because there are no proprietary fences around this-or-that parts of it. You can cross the river anytime you like and never pay a toll. You can erect any sort of
luxurious cabin on top of the boat and sell tickets to get into
that, if you can, but not the boat itself, nor the river.
So, you can pursue
profits, if you can get them, without being forced to bear yourself all of the
costs. The costs are amortized and distributed ... over the whole world. You can "stand on the shoulders of giants" far higher than you, acting alone, ever could have
afforded to go. The only thing that you're obliged to do ... yes, "under penalty of law" ... is to "share alike." A small price, indeed.
No one had ever approached software-development in this way before. No lawyer had ever been asked to craft a license like the GPL, which could be upheld in international courts and which, when tested,
was upheld. But all of these things, taken together, created the "rising tide" that the computer industry needed, and it enabled
all of the "toys" and fundamental-appliances that we use today. In terms of technology's advancement alone, they're no "monopoly." They're "irrelevant."
That's
also why Microsoft finds itself today locked-out of so much of the
hardware market, and why they are forced to put the same brand-name, "Windows,®" onto several different systems which have nothing in common with one another. (And to support them all, at
their own expense.) Even though they persuaded a Federal Judge to proclaim them "a monopoly," the industry was having none of it.
