Just like Rome, the GNU/Linux "stack" was not built in a day. Countless individuals have contributed to its development, far too many to name, bringing with them the foundational principles that defined the very concept of "open-source."
In 1983, Richard Stallman, who was at the time a developer and engineer, decided to build the GNU Project as he was frustrated by the enormous restrictions imponed by proprietary software. Wanting a completely free operating system, the project had almost all the necessary tools ready, but still lacked the heart of a system that could talk to the hardware: a kernel.
A few years later, a Finnish student named Linus Torvalds decided to start a hobby project due to his dissatisfaction with low-quality systems, which did not fully use his new computer's power. On August 25, 1991, he famously announced Linux on a newsgroup, classifying it as something that won't become "big and professional".
You can already tell where the story is going: Stallman had the tools but no kernel, while Torvalds had the kernel but no tools. By licensing the kernel under the GNU General Public (GPL) license, the two were combined to form the first functional and completely free operating system: GNU/Linux.
With the 90s ending, things where changing in positive for GNU/Linux as it was gaining more attention than expected. Many niche projects like Debian and Red Hat, which are still relevant up to this day, began introducing the so called "distributions", systems that bundled the kernel and tools into easy-to-install format.
In 1998, major businesses like IBM, Oracle, and HP have started offering official support for Linux. IBM's investment of $1 billion into Linux development was a game changer, showcasing to businesses how Linux was ready for the enterprise. Thanks to them, Linux became one of the major pillars of the internet with the LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP). It would be impossible to browse the web if it wasn't for GNU/Linux.
GNU/Linux stands as the alternative for people seeking privacy and freedom: the main topic when it comes to comparison of operating systems is more about which one respects the user's autonomy. In the recent years, Linux has also been proven to be a perfect platform that could satisfy both the interests of both consumers and professional.
Despite being their "arch-nemesis", Microsoft has released the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL), allowing Windows users to run Linux directly. Recently, Microsoft even open-sourced the majority of WSL. This is a giant win, especially for developers, cosnidering that Linux's tools are nowadays the industry standard.