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The competition has moved inside Linux. The large companies all maintain their own patch sets. There are still ways they believe that they can make OSes better, they just don't believe they can compete with Linux in all the other ways, so they just write their own modifications for it instead.

Which is absolutely wonderful, because Linux is licensed under GPL, so the best improvements end up in the main tree and everyone benefits.

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> Linux is licensed under GPL, so the best improvements end up in the main tree

Without taking sides in the debate, grsecurity/PaX patches are a counterexample.

That's a great example of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15772233 (currently also on the front page), where something appears superior on the surface, but there are good reasons why it didn't "win".

"grsecurity/PaX" didn't show up in the main tree but is alive in a different branch or as patch. Various distributions and users are free to enable and use it upon demand.

It kind of prove Linux kernel is not mono-culture and natural selection and evolution are happening.

I believe the AOSP's kernel patches are also not mainlined - also proof Linux kernel are evolving very healthily.

So in essence Linux have become what UNIX was back in the day, a baseline for everyone from IBM to HP to build upon.

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