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Comment by tetris11 | Hacker News Reader

Linux was successful before corporate backing from just a handful of volunteers. If it was a failing product, corporations wouldn't have chosen it to develop on. It has been greatly enhanced by corporate contributions, but it would have gotten there without them too, albeit much slower.

I do agree though that MS products will likely play hard and fast with the compatibility game in order to exhaust local government workers from using FOSS

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Linux started receiving corporate backing within a few years of it being released. Red Hat played a huge role in providing support and someone to turn to when something went wrong.

> but it would have gotten there without them too, albeit much slower

No, it wouldn't have. There is no way that a bunch of volunteers in their spare time could achieve the same results, what took many full-time employees and contributions from the largest and most powerful corporations in the world.

I counter these assertions by simply saying the opposite with exactly the same authority supported by exactly as many citations.

Even the bsds, which allow companies to steal without giving back, have kept essentially apace in any important ways with a microscopic fraction on Linux's individual or corporate investment, and without Linux's copyleft to ensure all developments go back upstream.

Both of these comments were nothing more than religious faith opinion.

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