April 2003

In the global fight between Tux and Bux, where's the best place to bet on the penguin? Try India.

From <http://www.linuxjournal.com/comments.php?sid=6601>

Linux is being adopted for reasons that have a great deal to do with Linus Torvalds and firehoses.

In the early part of the last century, one of the U.S. national treasures nearly burned down. Located on the Mall in Washington D.C., it contained irreplaceable historical objects, the Museum of Science and Natural History.

It almost burned down because none of the firehoses coupled together. Provided by different manufacturers, they were incompatible. The curators barely managed to extinquish the fire anyway.

As an answer, the Bureau of Standards began to dictate the standards for firehose connectors when supplied to the U.S. government. Not for anyone else, just the U.S. government. Almost immediately, other governmental entities adopted the standard. Cities, towns, fire districts, and States mandated that the non-standard "standard" be followed when submitting bids to them, as well.

Manufacturers were furious. They no longer owned their own private standards. Instead, any two bit foundry could cast the nozzles and conectors, machine them to meet the specifications, and there was a ready market across the country. The price of brass firehose nozzles and connectors plummeted.

Linus has done the same. He has imposed a hard-nosed standard (he admits he is a jerk at times) with high levels of quality. He wields this awesome power through the simplest of protocols: he owns the list. He, and he alone, says "THIS is part of LInux 2.4.20 or 2.6.3 or whatever, and THAT is not." If you do not like Linus' list, fine. He has already invited you to create your own.

This is only possible because Bill Gates (yes, That Bill Gates) and IBM laid the foundation. IBM created the PC, and sold it in such overwhelming numbers that it became the de facto standard. Because of concerns about monopoly charges, IBM let Microsoft sell DOS and Windows to anybody. (I find this terribly ironic, in light of Microsoft's subsequent monopolistic conduct, particularly with respect to IBM and OS/2.)

Linux found fertile ground in this huge base of common machines.

We now have a standard that is owned by an engineer with an idea, an engineer that cares about nothing else. It just does not get better than that.

OpenSource and ROI are not driving the transformation. It is powered by Linus' Free (as in "beer") Standards.

Long live the revolution.

*Sources: 1-7, New York Times; 8-15, Business World India; 16, The Inquirer; 17, Linux Banglalore.

Doc Searls is Senior Editor of Linux Journal.