The world’s favorite open-sourced operating system Linux is turning 30!!
On 25 August 1991 computer science student Linus Torvalds asked members of the comp.os.minix newsgroup for suggestions about his free Unix-like operating system. From those humble beginnings, Linux has gone on to conquer the world.
Today you can find the Linux Kernel in over three billion active Android devices, The Register claims. Statista estimates that 72.84% of the world’s mobile devices used the Android operating system in July 2021.
Linux Conquers the World
Impressively, 100% of the world’s top 500 supercomputers use Linux, the Linux Foundation claims. In addition, 95% of public cloud providers use Kubernetes, a Linux product.
In addition, 70% of global mobile subscribers use networks built with Linux’s ONAP, The Linux Foundation claims. Plus, 50% of the Fortune 50 companies use Linux’s blockchain partner Hyperledger. There are also one billion devices with Let’s Encrypt certificates.
Linux is even more popular than Microsoft Windows among users of Microsoft’s Azure cloud, The Register notes. In fact, Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) now offers its own version of Linux for the Virtual Machines that run in its Azure Cloud.
Even IBM (NYSE: IBM) uses Linux. IBM bought Linux provider Red Hat Inc for $34 billion in 2018. Linux has become the world’s most popular and lucrative open-source operating system. In particular, Linux is the basis of such money machines as GitHub, now owned by Microsoft, and Alphabet’s (GOOGL) Android.
Linux is worth $54.1 billion
The Linux Foundation estimates that over 235,000 developers and over 19,000 companies worldwide use Linux. Those developers have written 1.15 billion lines of code that have created $54.1 billion in value, the Foundation claims.
Hence, a computer science student’s project is now one of the most valuable products on Earth. Moreover, Linux’s open sourced revolution has changed computing.
All companies, expect Apple (AAPL) seem to be open-sourced. Even Microsoft (MSFT) has surrendered to Linux. So happy birthday Linux, and enjoy your world conquest.
Originally published at https://geekcrunch.reviews on August 25, 2021.
