I don't mean it in a literal sense, though I get where you're coming from. Think of it this way: your server software's stability is more or less defined by how well it conforms to Linux compatibility. Even software that is designed with perfect POSIX compliance won't run reliably on the majority of servers. Linux, despite not being a standard, has become a spec for server software.
The kicker is that nobody can really undermine them unless you can create a true alternative with a more compelling license than GPL. If our industry wants to return to a truly standardized status-quo, we need to put aside our differences and collaborate on a next-gen spec that works. Considering that we barely did this in the 80s with POSIX, I seriously doubt today's developers and researchers are capable of doing it again. I'd love to be proven wrong though.
The kicker is that nobody can really undermine them unless you can create a true alternative with a more compelling license than GPL. If our industry wants to return to a truly standardized status-quo, we need to put aside our differences and collaborate on a next-gen spec that works. Considering that we barely did this in the 80s with POSIX, I seriously doubt today's developers and researchers are capable of doing it again. I'd love to be proven wrong though.