ABSTRACT
Computer operating systems, since their inception, have suffered greatly from lack of portability (the ability to run an operating system on another platform/hardware architecture for which it was not originally designed) and closed operating system source code. Luckily, that suffering seems to be almost over, thanks to the development of an operating system based on open standards and open source code. Linux, an operating system conceived in the mind of a Finnish college student by the name of Linus Torvalds and contributed to by scores of programmers across the Internet, has effectively positioned itself to combat the once thought implacable foe of closed operating system standards and closed operating system source code. It does so by allowing anyone who has the need for the source code to be able to obtain it and modify it to their necessary specifications without restriction.
