Linux has a social structure just as peculiar as its development structure. Linux differs from commercial operating systems in essentially a similar fashion that public radio differs from commercial broadcast radio. Public radio rejects corporate endorsements in order to offer an objective and unbiased program to its audience. Linux is a public operating system in many ways, in that it looks to its user base for support in lieu of corporate contributions. Although this preserves its focus on quality and technology, the Linux system has somewhat alienated the corporate sector.
Since the development of Linux is so open, the users and the engineers of Linux have tended to be the same people. The free communication made possible by the internet allows users to interact with the development team fast and efficiently. This allows Linux to adapt almost instantaneously to users' needs. The past provides countless examples of Linux kernels being fixed within hours of someone on the internet finding a problem. The Linux and FreeBSD teams often compete to see who can fix a newly-discovered problem in their respective kernels first. Both had incorporated a patch to fix a bug caused by the Intel Pentium processor within four hours of its discovery, before Intel even acknowledged that the bug existed. In contrast, almost all of commercial operating systems did not respond to the problem for several weeks afterwards. The free interaction among the users and the developers of Linux helps it progress at a rapid pace.