Linux is an “open source” operating system originally developed by a engineer from Finland named Linus Torvalds. Linux was released under an early version of the GNU “General Public License”, or GPL, by which any user that wanted to work with Linux was free to do so. Though it has evolved considerably over the years, it has yet to eclipse the popularity of Microsoft’s Windows operating system at the consumer and small business level- which is dominated by “desktop” computer sales.
Sun, IBM and HP all have produced servers that utilize Linux – and it is in the server – database environment that Linux has thrived since its inception. The two major software companies that have produced successive versions of Linux software are Novell and Red Hat, both of which have taken an open source (free) operating system and equipped it with a variety of software packages tailored to various requirements, in order to create proprietary products.
While Linux based systems drive some cell phones and can be found in ordinary PCs, the primary competition between Red Hat and Novell has been in the “enterprise space,”...