This work's goal is to analyze the appearance and consolidation of the Linux operational system in a context marked by the hegemony of commercial operational systems, taking the Windows/Microsoft as the paradigmatic example. The creator of Linux chose to make it open-source and offer it free of charge, in the Internet. Since then, people from the various parts of the world have participated in its development. This study, therefore, seeks to analyse the features of this space of sociability, where the exchange points to another logic different of that one adopted by the market. The proposal of comprehending the social ties of the Linux universe through the perspective of gift ends up sending us into another discussion, which will also deserve attention in this study, that would be: the recentness of gift. Re-interpretations of Mauss, made by Godbout and Caillé, indicate that gif, in its "changing system", is present in the contemporary societies, but not only in certain social occasions, like Mauss himself used to put it.
free software; gift; Linux; reciprocity