The Linux operating system is absolutely everywhere.
Android is based on it, it runs most of the servers you connect to whenever you use the internet,
and it's even used to control NASA's Mars rover.
If you don't know much about Linux, you can learn more about it up here,
but in a nutshell, it's a free, open-source operating system that's been around since 1991.
But here's the thing, since it's free and open-source, does anybody actually own it?
Like in the way that Microsoft owns Windows or Apple owns macOS?
At first glance, you might think, no, nobody does, because it's free,
and anyone can use, change, or add even to its source code.
But remember guys, free doesn't mean devoid of ownership.
Your local park that is free to use for your Quidditch or LARPing meetups is still owned by the city,
and Linus Media Group still owns this video, even though it's free for you to watch it.
So who does own Linux? Well, the main creator of the Linux kernel is Finnish software engineer Linus Torvalds, hence the name,
who wanted to make it freely available. Now, although he originally wanted to limit how Linux could be used commercially,
he actually eventually decided to use software from the GNU project
to turn Linux into a fully functional operating system rather than just a kernel.
So Torvalds ended up licensing Linux under the GNU General Public License, or GPL,
which allows users to modify and distribute the source code.
However, anyone who distributes Linux has to do so under the same terms,
which assures that any modifications to the Linux kernel also have to continue to be free.
However, none of this means that Torvalds himself or any other single entity owns the Linux source code in full.
Although Torvalds does approve a number of changes himself,
that doesn't give him the copyright to those changes.
So if you, yes you, Andrew, contribute code to Linux and it gets approved by the community,
you actually retain the copyright to that piece of code.
So you will become one of the thousands of collective owners of Linux.
But keep in mind that because of the terms of the GPL,
you can't forbid anyone else from using or even modifying your code in the future.
And then because so many people own copyright in the different parts of the Linux source code,
it's hard to imagine that the terms Linux is licensed under will ever change.
In fact, if Linux Torvalds or anyone else wanted to change the way Linux is distributed,
every copyright holder would have to agree to it.
For example, a question was raised recently about Linux moving to the newest version of the GPL, version 3.
And while Torvalds himself had serious reservations about this due to version 3 containing restrictions
as to how Linux could be used, even if he were to say, yeah, let's go for it,
he probably couldn't get permission from every single person that's contributed code to the project.
Anyway, however, that doesn't mean that the name Linux can be used without any kind of restriction.
The Linux name is a registered trademark in the United States belonging to
Linux Torvalds through the Linux Mark Institute, with Torvalds deciding to register the name to keep others from just using it willy-nilly.
With that said, it's actually free to apply for a license, so you should definitely do that
if you're using the name Linux in the branding for a software-related service,
whether you're a software giant like Red Hat or just distributing a small homebrew project for free.
Fun fact, by the way, apparently, Linus Torvalds had some reservations about naming the project after himself
because he thought that might seem egotistical.
I, for one, can't imagine why he considered that to be a problem.
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