IBM and Hewlett-Packard garnered billions of dollars in revenue from Linux-related products in 2002, the companies said this week. HP said Tuesday that it had $2 billion in Linux-related revenue in 2002. Wednesday, the opening day of the LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in New York, IBM said it had raked in $1.5 billion in Linux-related revenue.

The figures highlight the fact that although Linux can be obtained for free, there is money to be made from the operating system. IBM and HP both sell servers running Linux as well as software and services.

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