More 14/02/00

Software Wars: the Linux Challenge

One of the most potent challenges to Microsoft to have emerged in recent years is Linux. This is an operating system that is in direct competition with Microsoft's dominant Windows. And it's steadily growing in popularity.

Linux is an operating system that was initially created by a young student, Linus Torvalds, at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Linus had an interest in Minix, a small UNIX system, and decided to develop a system that exceeded the Minix standards. He began his work in 1991 and the current full-featured version is the 2.2 and development continues.

Linux is a free operating system developed by a loosely knit team of programmers working from all over the world. It works on almost every kind of computer and provides a platform for a wide variety of applications.

Unlike most operating systems Linux is free in almost all respects. One can download it off the internet at no charge, pass on copies to friends, and even modify its internals. Linux is developed under the GNU General Public License and its source code is freely available to everyone. This however, doesn't mean that all Linux systems and its assorted distributions are free - companies and developers may charge money for it as long as the source code remains available. Porgramme Factsheet...