Today, many powerful applications are available, via GNU, that run on Linux.
This array of powerful applications has been a key factor that has helped take Linux
from a programmer??™s pet project to a robust tool suitable for wide deployment in the
modern organization.
Linux itself is licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). The key
thing to remember about the GPL is that it requires that the source code remain
freely available to anyone who wants it. As a result, anyone can download the Linux
kernel??™s source code, modify it, recompile it, and run it.
This is a very unusual aspect of Linux. Most modern operating system vendors
do not make their products??™ source code freely available. To the contrary, most
operating systems have a section in their End User License Agreement (EULA) that
prevents the user from reverse-compiling the operating system.
There are applications available that can reverse-compile a binary program
file. This process re-creates the program??™s source in a text file. The source
code generated isn??™t an exact duplicate of the original source code, but an
approximation that can be very close to the original source code.
Because Linux is distributed under the GPL, anyone can download the source
code and create a custom version of Linux.
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