Linux has been gaining ground to fight off Microsoft Windows" dominancy in server and desktop computing running with Intel (X86 compatible) platform and has the biggest pool of developer communities. Another important reason is that Linux has fulfill to a certain extend the goal of OSS movement - to create a free UNIX-like system. Interestingly, one of IDC's prediction is Linux will eat up UNIX operating system market share in 2003 (Frauenheim, E., Dec 2002). .
Base on survey, nearly 60% of corporate IT companies globally have already use Linux, citing stability, cost savings, performance and security as top reasons to deploy it (refer to Appendix D). Linux also reported to rank the highest importance in term of rating and vitality, and only second to MP3 in term of popularity (http://freshmeat.net/stats/rating, June 2003). .
As for Red Hat, it is the de facto most popular Linux distribution, the first Linux company to go IPO on Nasdaq and preferred by 68.7% of US Linux users, according to IDC research (Kenwood, July 2001). Founded in 1994 by Bob Young (now served as chairman) and Marc Ewing, it has received numerous industry awards and built partnership with top PC and server manufacturers such as Compaq/HP, Dell, Gateway, IBM, Silicon Graphics and many more. Internet poll done in 2002 by Linux.com displays preference of Red Hat Linux distribution compare to others, shown in below graph:.
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Source: http://linux.com/pollBooth.pl?qid=819&aid=-1 .
Base on the five year revenue, Deloitte & Touche on January 2001 ranks Red Hat as one of the fastest-growing technology companies which further affirmed Red Hat's commercial position not only in OSS industry but in international software community (http://www.redhat.com/about/presscenter/2001/press_fast500.html, January 2003).
Linux Debate and Problem Analysis.
Although the choice of using the term between "free software" and "open source" is still widely debated but generally in Linux community, the term "open source" somehow is more acceptable.
