Although Linux hasn’t been a slam-dunk success in every market—it remains a dud on the desktop—the operating system has had a profound impact on the technology industry and on enterprise computing. Columbia University professor Eben Moglen, one of the original authors of the GPL, took a moment at LinuxCon to discuss his views about the role Linux plays in society. He described Linux as the steel and coal of a 21st century industrial revolution. Linux and the Internet, he said, have together changed human civilization more than any other pair of inventions.
Linux runs a majority of the world’s super computers, many of the most popular websites, and a large number of mainstream consumer electronics products. If you search the Web with Google, interact with your friends on Facebook, look up a fact on Wikipedia, read a book on a Kindle, watch Netflix on a Boxee Box, or make a call with an Android phone, you are relying on Linux.
