This year passed 15 years that Linux was born. He is almost in his adult age and already achieved more then some adults did. Mr. Torvalds had the justified right to be interview by CNN. More then any possible comments, this fact speaks for today's influence of the Open Source Movement in the World. The December number of Linux Format has an interesting historical article on the subject, including some critics to Linux. The announcement of the "cooperation" between Novel and Microsoft raised some emotions to each I'm not neutral. I prefer that Novell follows is way, as SuSE did. But I think that is a discussion of the past. Linux emerged not as "against" operating system (OS), but as a professional system that "took" the desktop by is own merit. Dos/Windows born as an amateur system and, after, tried to conquer the "professional world" of the servers. If in the past was possible that each new computer had his own OS because hardware was expensive them software, for a long time that relation does no longer exists. Today there are only three OS : Linux, Unix and Windows. Economical, it's impossible to develop a new OS or maintain an existing one, specially for Microsoft that is paying it. Many of the "new" features of Vista I've them on my SuSE 10.1. In 1991, the appearance of Linux coincide with, what we today designate by, the "globalization". The origin of Ubuntu in Africa is extremely significant when we know that daily many Africans risk their lives in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic, trying to reach Europe, hopping to get a job. Of course that China just only started "playing" this "game" and there is always his neighbour India. If we want a more restrictive view, lets consider the fact that Windows is an "American" OS, Linux is "European" and Red Hat, an American company, was one of the firsts to profit from Linux. Today, Open Source is a commercial asset because there are a professional systems, applications and worldwide support. And this is the new paradigm of the information systems industry : support or services are expensive then software. The objective of Microsoft, as any other company, is to earn money and I think that Mr. Gates is no longer interested in that "game", once he is "playing" with X-Boxes. In 1995, when the Internet was starting to boom, Microsoft tried to build a global network to compete, embedding the appropriated software in their OS. I think that today no one remembers even it's name, but we all know the recurrent insecurity findings in Explorer. The Open Source Movement, in the globalization era, can't be stopped. Off course that we can always raised the patent issue, the standards issue, etc. But if the Chinese decide to setup a standard for office documents, does any other standard could stand? And how can some software "patents" be asserted when it's was possible to decrypt DVDs and millions of people do it? The ongoing "battle" is who will be the leader of the services in the Open Source market. Microsoft is just one of the contenders and maybe is not the biggest one. Lívio Cipriano