Re:it's basically true -- no point in denying it (Score 2, Interesting)

In fact, the linux kernel has been continously being replaced by something better: why do you think we had so many versions: 1.0, 2.0, 2.2, 2.4, 2.6 ?

In many of those changes, several sub-systems were completely replaced with entire new implementations.

If the system was just a copy, it would simply be a copy of some implementation and it wouldn't had been re-written so many times.

If you look at the Linux system as a whole, you might not notice many innovations: It's just a Unix/Posix implementation, but doesn't everybody keep talking about standards, intereoperability and application portability ?

Posix it's a standard and Linux just adhered to it. In order to be compliant it has to provide the same APIs and thats the reason it doesn't look much innovative at first sight.

However, if you look at the implementation of many subsystems, you will find many innovations and you will continue to see much more as time passes.

Right now Linux is like a laboratory workbench: there are people all over the world researching in operating systems and they are using Linux as their base systems instead of starting from scratch. We don't need to keep reinventing the weel everyday.

I think in the future you will see most innovations appear in Linux first and then get ported to other systems, until Linux finnaly takes over the world.