Commemorating 20 years of Linux (video)
Linux has grown tremendously during the last 20 years to touch nearly every part of our lives. This video gives a quick overview of how its become one of the biggest enablers of growth.
In honor of the 20th anniversary of the Linux Operating System, the nonprofit Linux Foundation has produced an infographic and video that reminds us how much of an impact the open source operating system has had on the world.
In case you've been living under a rock for the last two decades, Linux is part of pretty much every technology ecosystem--mobile (Android), Web (Google), consumer (TiVo), and powers a huge amount of the Internet itself. And it continues to grow, both as an enabler of new services in the cloud and as the operating system that powers huge corporate data centers.
Red Hat has seen vast success with Linux in the server and data realms, so much so that Linux Foundation chief Jim Zemlin recently declared the war with Microsoft to be over, but there is still a large (theoretical) opportunity in the desktop and new platforms such as tablets to be addressed.
And while new platforms for consumers are generally more exciting, Linux continues to be the dominant OS in the cloud, with Ubuntu and Amazon's own Linux distribution acting as the primary hosts for servers on Amazon Web Services EC2 platform, which itself is built atop of Linux.
Even with all of this cheerleading, you still have to pay attention to what else is going on in the various markets. Apple, for example, has created an enormous mobile content ecosystem, and Microsoft has yet to make waves with it's Azure cloud service. Time will tell how long this winning streak can continue, but it's clear that Linux is here to stay.