Linux opens up challenge to Microsoft
In the strange world of technology, the biggest threat to the most powerful software company on the planet comes from a product developed by a loose group of students, hackers and assorted volunteers. By all current logic, this should not be true.
Microsoft’s nemesis is Linux, a piece of software which began life as a project for Finnish student Linus Torvalds in 1991.
Since then, it has grown through the shared efforts of thousands of internet users across the globe to the point where it is arguably more powerful, stable and secure than Microsoft Windows.
And Linux has achieved its position by turning the whole ethos of companies such as Microsoft on its head. At the heart of the contrast is what is known as the "source code".
