Comment by hnlmorg

There were already better free options than Linux when Linux first started gaining traction.

The reason Linux grew in the 90s was because it was part of the hacker culture. Not because better options didn’t exist.

Kids liked the fact that Linux was a free-for-all, anything-goes, platform. It wasn’t stuffy like Unix and it wasn’t proprietary like Windows.

Then those kids grew up and became decision makers themselves. And we started to see Linux replace FreeBSD and commercial Unixes.