Linux is a UNIX like operating system and has been one of the most popular proponents of free open source software. Even though popularly GNU/Linux is called Linux operating system, but the name is somewhat misleading because Linux is the name of the kernel of the operating system, which was created by Finnish hacker Linus Torvalds as a hobby project

The title might be totally misleading but let me explain what I mean. Today Business Week has published an update on their list of Best Global Brands (there is a PDF with the top 100 ranking). There are many brands linked to software development in the top positions. Let's see how free software is doing there:

Debian is a free operating system (OS) for your computer. An operating system is the set of basic programs and utilities that make your computer run. At the core of an operating system is the kernel. The kernel is the most fundamental program on the computer: It does all the basic housekeeping and lets you start other programs.

When open source software pioneer Linus Torvalds first posted the Linux source code on an internet newsgroup site in 1991, he was clear about its terms of use: no one should be able to make money from Linux, he said.

Red Hat Chairman Matthew Szulik last week sold more than $3.4 million worth of shares in the Linux software developer and services provider.

"The GNU operating system is a complete free software system, upward-compatible with Unix. GNU stands for “GNU's Not Unix”. Richard Stallman made the Initial Announcement of the GNU Project in September 1983. A longer version called the GNU Manifesto was published in September 1985 [...] By 1990 we had either found or written all the major components except one—the kernel.

Yes, Microsoft is demanding — and in many cases, receiving royalties — from companies selling devices that run Android, an operating system based on Linux. This shows that its place in the world remains complicated. Though it’s moving to the web, it is still very much a company that makes money selling software — and it still has an interest in protecting this business.

Software maker Red Hat could be within a decade of catching up with Microsoft in the business of selling server software. That's according to CEO Matthew Szulik, who said that by 2015, his Raleigh, N.C., company could gain half or more of the market for the server operating systems that businesses use. Microsoft is far and away the leader in that market

It is not enough to have Richard Stallman travel around the world endlessly giving standard Free Software speeches among other things repeating how Open Source is not the same thing as Free Software and how the operating system widely known as "Linux" is actually "GNU/Linux" (because GNU project in fact started that OS).