Last month Microsoft lawyers sparred with government witnesses to convince the courts that the company no longer had a monopoly on PC operating systems. They argued that Linux, a fast-growing operating system, posed a real threat to the company’s command on the server software market. The Linux army of 10 million volunteer programmers worldwide had conquered a niche market and now was threatening further conquests, they bickered.

What is Linux, the upstart allegedly threatening Microsoft? In simple terms, it is an open source, Unix-like operating system that works on multiple platforms providing solid performance, reliability, and scalability. Linux includes true multitasking, virtual memory, shared libraries, demand loading, proper memory management, TCP/IP networking, and other features consistent with Unix-type systems. “Open source” means that Linux source code is freely available to everyone. Anyone can download it and modify the code to meet their needs without paying a licensing fee.

How It All Started

While it has been making headlines in the past few months, Linux is no ‘Johnny-come-lately’. In 1991, Linus Torvalds, a graduate student at Finland’s University of Helsinki, wrote his own version of Unix because he wanted an alternative to DOS and Windows. He invited other programmers from around the world to join him. He received a tremendous response and in 1994, he released Linux 1.0, which has become one of the fastest growing operating systems in recent history, with about 7 to 10 million users.

What started out as a geek-chic tinkering tool, today is generating enthusiasm among IT managers, academicians, scientists, and businessmen alike. In fact, Linux has gotten so good that it’s sneaking its way into mainstream businesses, and proving to be a viable alternative to Windows NT. Last year alone, the number of companies using Linux increased by 27 percent, according to Dataquest, a market research company in San Jose, California.

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