This assessment suggests that Linux is fully competitive nowadays with commercial operating systems. Moreover, Linux has several features that make it an exciting operating system. Commercial Unix kernels often introduce new features to gain a larger slice of the market, but these features are not necessarily useful, stable, or productive. As a matter of fact, modern Unix kernels tend to be quite bloated. By contrast, Linux—together with the other open source operating systems—doesn’t suffer from the restrictions and the conditioning imposed by the market, hence it can freely evolve according to the ideas of its designers (mainly Linus Torvalds). Specifically, Linux offers the following advantages over its commercial competitors: Linux is cost-free. You can install a complete Unix system at no expense other than the hardware (of course). Linux is fully customizable in all its components. Thanks to the compilation options, you can customize the kernel by selecting only the features really needed. Moreover, thanks to the GPL, you are allowed to freely read and modify the source code of the kernel and of all system programs.
以上论断表明如今的Linux完全能够和商用操作系统竞争；同时Linux具有几个特性使得它成为一个令人心潮澎湃的操作系统。商用Unix内核经常引入一些新的特性并以此来获得更大的市场份额，但是这些特性并不见得用得上，而且不稳定甚至毫无成效。事实上，现代Unix内核有日益臃肿的趋势，相比之下，Linux与其他开源操作系统同样不受市场的限制和制约，因此它可以根据设计者（主要是Linus Torvalds）的想法自由进化。需要特别指出的是，Linux比其他商用Unix操作系统有个明显的优势：Linux是免费的。你可以不需要花任何费用就安装一个完整的Unix系统——当然硬件费用除外。Linux的所有部件都是完全可以定制的。您可以通过设置编译选项来定制一个内核系统，这个系统仅包含你真正需要的特性。另外，基于GPL协议之下，你免费阅读甚至修改内核中的源代码以及所有系统程序都是被允许的。