About Linux was argued over and over again. For the first time in 1992 Andrew S. Tanenbaum blamed Linux because of an old fashioned design and for a too liberal developing model. Without success.

Another Linux-opponent was Ken Brown, in his book Samizdat, he maintained Linux is a copy of Unix. Of course the quarrel with the competition was also not absent. Arch-enemy was present and remained Microsoft.

Insiders revealed that there are internal Microsoft documents pointing out Linux as the biggest enemy for Windows .Later Microsoft began with a campaign comparing Windows with Linux in terms of technical and economical characteristics. The users smiled about that, while the companies of the Linux environment organized counter-campaigns.

In autumn, 2006, however, Microsoft and Novell announced to work together in the field of interoperability and patent protection to improve the cooperation of the individuel products.

In 2003 the competitor Unix and manufacturer of SCO stated that Linux developers used source codes of SCOs Unix and just had copied them into the Linux operating system. A court procedure followed has been put down in 2007. In the article SCO against Linux the quarrel is chronologically documented
There were also trademark law disputes. For example in the 1990ies some private individuals licensed the name Linux. It was not so easy for Torvald to cancel this. As a result of these problems the Linux Mark institutes was established and was from then responsible to manage all trademark questions concerning Linux.

A trademark licences up to 5,000 dollars per year annoyed many communities. Torvald himself released an open letter and explained that the royalties were required to cover the cost of the non-profit Linux Mark Institute.

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