[nostrademons]

Also, the ascendancy of Linux was a direct result of the fight between them. There was already a perfectly decent free UNIX - BSD - when Linux came out. However, the license wars meant that many corporations wouldn't go near it, because they weren't sure whether they'd get in legal trouble for it or if it would still be available once the lawsuits settled. Rather than deal with that uncertainty, people started looking at Linux as a completely free, from-scratch implementation.