How Linux has changed the business landscape: It's more than you think

3 years ago 395

On the twelvemonth of Linux's 30th anniversary, Jack Wallen ponders however the open-source operating strategy has profoundly affected the scenery of endeavor businesses.

Linux is 30 years old. I was conscionable starting postgraduate schoolhouse by the clip Linus Torvalds began moving connected the project. I retrieve truthful well, backmost astatine Purdue, the archetypal clip I utilized email. I felt similar I'd entered a magical realm wherever thing was possible. It was each text-based (probably Elm oregon Mutt) and erstwhile you knew the keyboard commands you were acceptable to pass with everyone.

SEE: 5 Linux server distributions you should beryllium using (TechRepublic Premium)

Little did I know, astatine the aforesaid clip I was learning the ins and outs of email, determination crossed the globe different pupil was learning however to physique an full operating system.

Perspective is fun.

Back then, I had nary thought however businesses ran. I didn't truly care, due to the fact that the tract I was studying had perfectly thing to bash with business, computers, networking, information oregon tech successful general. Little did I cognize however things would change.

Back successful my aboriginal days of utilizing and covering the Linux operating system, it was a precise antithetic beast. The archetypal Linux normal I attended was each trenchcoat-wearing hackers successful fedoras and fingerless gloves. I felt arsenic though I'd stepped into 1 of William Gibson's worlds and the keyboard cowboys were doing their champion to instrumentality down the elephantine companies that would someday trademark our brains and commodify our each thought. They'd beryllium pushing ads straight into our brains, and we'd upload caller thoughts and memories via a stem larboard connected the backmost of our skulls. Those hackers were our saviors, and large concern was the force of each humankind.

SEE: My beingness with Linux: A retrospective (TechRepublic)

At slightest that's the script that played retired successful my caput arsenic I walked the halls of the convention.

There were nary elephantine megacompanies hoisting banners supra booths. There were nary Fortune 500 sponsors. There were developers, dreamers and users who knew (to their core) that satellite domination was the aboriginal of Linux.

Only the domination wouldn't travel connected the desktop arsenic we thought. Instead, it would hap successful the backmost end; connected the servers and information centers.

And erstwhile I flip my representation backmost to that fateful play convention, this peculiar thought would ne'er person crossed my mind:

Without Linux, astir endeavor businesses wouldn't marque it.

Don't judge me? Let maine assistance you recognize wherefore I've travel to a decision my younger aforesaid would ne'er person predicted.

Kubernetes
Docker
TensorFlow
Ansible
MongoDB
Helm
MySQL
WordPress
Cassandra
React
Bootstrap
Node.js
Flutter
Python
PHP
Electron
Android
And, of course, Linux.

But what gives? We're talking astir Linux, not open-source successful general. That's an casual answer: Without Linux, open-source wouldn't beryllium wherever it is today. Of course, open-source predates Linux. Back successful 1979, Donald Knuth had the TeX typesetting strategy and successful 1983, RMS has the GNU operating system. However, it wasn't until Linus Torvalds created Linux that open-source garnered superior attention. And had Linux not been released nether the GPL, open-source mightiness ne'er person grown beyond basements and classrooms.

The favored task of Linus Torvalds ignited open-source and profoundly altered its trajectory. Had that ne'er happened, endeavor businesses would beryllium nether the monolithic value of vendor lock, and projects similar Kubernetes mightiness person ne'er seen the airy of day. That translates to little agile and little profitable businesses.

But let's see yet different possibility. Linux has helped usher the satellite of concern to a developer-centric framework of being. Consider this: Had Linux ne'er been created (and, thus, open-source ne'er risen to popularity), businesses would beryllium astatine the mercy of bundle companies to present the tools they request to function. But due to the fact that of Linux and open-source, companies tin look to their developers to make precise circumstantial tools and systems to physique transportation pipelines and workflows that not lone marque concern imaginable but businesslike and reliable.

SEE: Rust: What developers request to cognize astir this programming connection (free PDF) (TechRepublic)

Such a authorities would ne'er person travel into existence, were it not for Linux bridging truthful galore gaps. Instead, endeavor companies (and their developers) would beryllium relegated to costly, inflexible proprietary software.

Thanks to Linux, we person a satellite that tin easy pivot and bundle that tin beryllium bent and molded into serving precisely the intent we need. We person microservices, the Internet of Things, edge computing, large data, and galore different tools that assistance tally the endeavor landscape.

Linux has fixed america overmuch much than conscionable an open-source operating strategy that has been fortunate to bask single-digit marketplace stock connected the desktop space; it's been rocket substance for modernization. Without Linux, each concern connected the satellite would conflict to conscionable overwhelming request and mightiness good fail.

And that's however Linux has changed the concern landscape.

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