Open-source Unix-like operating system kernel created by Linus Torvalds in 1991, now the foundation of nearly all server-side computing, Android, and most of the modern internet. Linux is the reference example of how an open, distributed, merit-based project can outcompete well-funded proprietary incumbents over decades — a long-horizon lesson about how community, trust, and craft compound. Related to Jevons Paradox: cheap, commoditized compute on Linux is exactly the dynamic that expanded the software market, not shrank it.