In case you cannot fully fathom the pertinence of my defense of Open Source technology, try one with numbers... How much did IBM® spend in 2019 to acquire RedHat®, the company that maintains the Linux distribution* of the same name? $340M, $3.4B, or $34B?
* A distribution is a version of the Linux Operating System.
That’s right! $34B.
This made this purchase the third-largest tech firm acquisition ever in the US and the biggest in software history at the time.
It provided IBM® with the Openshift/KVM/CEPH-trained* workforce and more of the Linux corporate user base it needed to take a leadership position in the hybrid cloud/multi-cloud.
Linux runs 90% of the public cloud workload (and over 50% of Microsoft® Azure). Most server rooms have a Linux server in one role or another, and Linux is the leading Operating System in US schools.
Everybody uses Linux/Unix. It powers 100% of the world smartphones (including the Microsoft® foldable Duo phones), Macs, Kindles, Chromebooks, Raspberry Pi’s, Tesla’s, Supercomputers, well over 50% of the servers on the Internet and over 80% of IoT and embeded devices.
Most of the big Internet Age corporations run on Linux and Open Source software. Their use is common place in factories and governments as well. Most websites and most active websites are built and run using Open Source content management systems like Wordpress.
Most retail sites are powered by Open Source eCommerce platforms.
Most sites are visited using Open Source web browsers like Firefox, Chrome, and even Edge (which now runs on Chrome).
Open Source tools are created and honed by major corporations and millions of private individuals volunteering their time and creativity for the greater good and their own needs.
By its very competitive nature Open Source software combines the best of what the market and human nature can offer.
The result is a rich ecosystem where infrastructure software is and remains light, stable,** fast, secure,*** frugal, scalable, transparent, customizable, natively designed for networking and the Web, interoperable, automatically updated, well documented, and free.
So why are your office PC and mine still running Windows? Because old habits die hard and Windows is good as a PC OS.
* KVM virtualization and CEPH clustering are two Open Source technologies maintained by RedHat and widely adopted by Internet corporations.
** No BSOD, no need for frequent reboots, 5 or 10 yr Long-term support, etc.
*** Bug bounties