There's platform, and then there's drivers. There's no point on having an OS on a net-enabled device if that OS can't talk to the network hardware, for example.

There's platform, and then there's drivers. There's no point on having an OS on a net-enabled device if that OS can't talk to the network hardware, for example. Linux has had a ridiculous amount of work from a variety of sources in it's drivers. I once used a git animation tool (forget the name of it, sorry) on the linux kernel source, and the area where the drivers were put was buzzing like a beehive, as people from all sorts of companies were making sure their stuff was supported on linux.