Linux is an
operating system. An operating system is the basic
set of programs and utilities that make your computer run. Some other common
operating systems are Unix (and its variants BSD, AIX, Solaris, HP-UX, and
others); DOS; Microsoft Windows; Amiga; and Mac OS.Linux is
Free Software. Now, just because it''s Free, doesn''t necessarily mean it''s free. Think
"free" as in "free speech," not "free beer," as we in the Free Software/Open
Source community like to say. In a nutshell, software that is free as in
speech, like Linux, is distributed along with its source
code so that anyone who receives it is free to make changes and redistribute it. So, not
only is it ok to make copies of Linux and give them to your friends,
it''s also fine to tweak a few lines of the source code while you''re at it -- as
long as you also freely provide your modified source code to everyone else. To learn more about
free software and the major software license it is distributed under,
called the General Public License (GPL), go here. In addition to the
GPL, there are many other software
licenses that allow you to modify the
source code. The Open Source Initiative approves these licenses and keeps a current list of
them.Linux is not
owned by anyone. One misconception many first-time
Linux.com readers have is that this site, Linux.com, is similar to
Microsoft.com, which is owned and controlled by the
company that produces the Windows operating system.No one company or individual "owns" Linux, which was developed, and is
still being improved, by thousands of corporate-supported and volunteer
programmers all over the world. Not even Linus Torvalds, who started the Linux ball
rolling in 1991, "owns" Linux.(However, the trademark "Linux" is owned by Linus Torvalds, so if you
call something "Linux" it had better be Linux, not something else.)How to get Linux: When you "get Linux" you are usually getting a
"Linux distribution" that contains not only the basic Linux operating
system, but also programs
that enhance it in many ways. Anyone who wants to put together his or
her own
Linux distribution is free to do so, and we know of more than 200
different Linux distributions that fill special "niche" purposes. But
we advise new users to stick with one of the five or six most popular
general-purpose Linux distributions until they know a little about what
Linux can and can''t do.
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