The Modern Internet Runs on Open Source

Linux Foundation Executive Director, Jim Zemlin, caused a stir recently by comparing "Microsoft bashing to kicking a puppy." This surprises many people, especially when we see the 2011 Fortune 500 report naming Microsoft as the world's 4th most profitable firm with nearly $19,000,000,000 in annual profit. That's one rich puppy.

When we look a little deeper however, especially in the context of the Internet services, we can clearly see what Mr. Zemlin is referring too. We are quickly moving from a computing experience powered by our desktop to one powered by Interent services, web and mobile enabled applications. How big of a role does open source play in your day to day computing experience? Probably much more than you realize.

Some of the best know examples include:

Powered by Linux...

• Google
• Amazon
• Facebook
• eBay
• Twitter

Built on Linux...

• Android
• Chrome OS
• WebOS
• Ubuntu
• openSUSE

Open Source Browsers... 

• FireFox
• Chrome

Powered by MySQL...

• Whitehouse.gov
• YouTube
• Wikipedia
• Zappos
• KAYAK
• Mint.com

These are only a few examples, there are literally millions. At Infegy, we use Ubuntu Server, MySQL, Sphinx Search Server and the Python programming language across about 50 custom built servers. Our LAMP stack is also getting a boost from a cluster of solid state drives (SSD's). 

Today we take open source projects and the services they power for granted but open source solutions are providing more value to our global economy than almost any other resource on earth.