[yyyk]

Being an Open-Source, free OS was the Linux selling point, over commercial Unixes and Windows. That was the open lane with relatively little competition. Now that Linux and BSDs are there, it's no longer an empty lane but a tough one to compete in.

Granted FreeBSD could have picked up more instead, but it was almost as young and not to be due to a series of 90s decisions (BSD court case; Linux name being catchy; Linux running a bit better on 386 PCs?; GNU tools being the default?; IBM deciding to invest in Linux).