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Unlike other UNIX clones, Linux and the BSD-derived systems (including Darwin) are open source, which means not only that users can have the source if they want it, but also that vendors who improve the source, like Red Hat, have to share their improvements. Users can choose to be entirely self-sufficient, compiling and building their own kernel. Or, they can use a commercial distribution, and still have the option of building their own. Students and ambitious professionals can learn how a real OS is put together.

Alone among open-source OSes, Linux has achieved critical mass. It’s a strategic platform for big hardware and software vendors like Oracle, HP, and IBM. There are thriving Linux vendors like Red Hat and SuSE (now part of Novell). There are big users, although many of them are lying low these days, hoping to evade SCO’s radar. Perhaps the most convincing evidence that Linux has arrived is that Wal-Mart sells it.

Linux really can substitute for UNIX, as I proved in doing the research for my book. It’s irritating that it doesn’t conform more closely to the Single UNIX Specification (see www.unix.org/version3 for details), but the gaps are on the surface and could be closed in a few months if the Linux community wanted to spend the time.

Linux is having a dramatic effect on the balance of power between vendors and between users and vendors. Having tasted open source, users are demanding more from closed-source vendors like Microsoft and Sun. Once invulnerable vendors, notably Microsoft, are looking over their shoulders as Linux gains server share and even threatens to invade the corporate desktop.

Linux is perfect for developing countries, because they can use it to educate their knowledge workers, they can deploy it without spending cash or running afoul of intellectual-property agreements, and they can become self-sufficient rather than being dependent on US and European technology companies.