The copying of processes is limited in the context of distributed
computation, either as a fact of life, often because remote networks
are simply too complicated to have control over, or deliberately, as
in the design of security protocols. Roughly, linearity is about how
to manage without a presumed ability to copy. The meaning and
mathematical consequences of linearity are studied for a path-based
model of processes which is also a model of affine-linear logic. This
connection yields an affine-linear language for processes in which
processes are typed according to the kind of computation paths they
can perform. One consequence is that the affine-linear language
automatically respects open-map bisimulation. A range of process
operations (from CCS, CCS with process-passing, ambients, and
dataflow) can be expressed within the affine-linear language showing
the ubiquity of linearity. An operational semantics is provided for
the tensor fragment of the language, and it is indicated how to
understand the tensor operation as a parallel composition of event
structures. Of course, process code can be sent explicitly to be
copied. Different ways to make assemblies of processes lead to
different choices of exponential, some of which respect bisimulation.
