Inventors · Profile 3
Linus Torvalds: a kernel companies could sell but not close
On 25 August 1991, Linus Torvalds told the comp.os.minix newsgroup that he was building a free operating-system kernel as a hobby. He released the early code through university FTP servers. By early 1992, Linux was licensed under version 2 of the GNU General Public License, and version 1.0 followed in March 1994.
GPLv2 allows people and companies to use, modify, sell, and distribute the kernel. When someone distributes a modified version, the license requires the corresponding source code to be available under the same terms. It does not require a company to publish changes that it keeps private and does not distribute.
Red Hat built a large business around Linux packaging, support, and services. IBM bought Red Hat for about $34 billion in 2019. That transaction bought Red Hat, not Linux. GPLv2 explains why Red Hat could not turn the shared kernel into its exclusive code, but it did not determine who owned Red Hat shares or who received the acquisition price. The sources cited here do not establish whether Torvalds received any unrelated financial benefit from the deal.
How was the builder paid?
Torvalds worked for Transmeta and then became a full-time fellow at the Open Source Development Labs, which later merged into the Linux Foundation. The Foundation pays his salary to maintain the kernel. Torvalds also owns the Linux trademark, while the Foundation administers a free sublicensing program for approved uses. The sources below do not publish his compensation.
What remained open?
The kernel source and any distributed modifications remain available under GPLv2. That has allowed hardware makers, cloud companies, distributors, and individual developers to build on the same code without buying exclusive rights from Torvalds. Kernel development still has maintainers and a final decision maker, and the Linux name is a registered trademark, so “open” does not mean ownerless or unmanaged.
Torvalds faced the same issue again in 2005 when the Linux project lost free access to BitKeeper, its proprietary version-control tool. He created Git and released it under GPLv2. Companies could build products and services around Git, but the underlying code remained available to others.