While businesses such as Red Hat and VA Linux Systems have generated billions of dollars for their founders and stockholders, the benefits have flowed the other way as well, the founder of Linux said today. Linux has been technically strong, but the influence of the business world has forced it to become usable as well, said Linus Torvalds, founder and still leader of the collective effort to develop the operating system, at a keynote address at the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo .
Technology is only as good as the user experience.
That is something that technology groups very often forget. Software that allows Linux to use DVDs has been developed, but the DVD Copy Control Association and the Motion Picture Association of America have filed suits to block distribution of the software. Linux, while still generally more technically challenging than mainstream operating systems such as Windows or MacOS, is becoming easier to use. Though Linux itself is available for free, start-ups and established companies all have plans to make money selling Linux itself, software that runs atop it, hardware that uses it, and support for it. In the past, development of Linux has been driven by technologists interested more in new features than in having a product that works more reliably than an experimental system.