What license is the Linux kernel covered under?

GNU General Public License version 2 only
The Linux Kernel is provided under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 2 only (GPL-2.0), as published by the Free Software Foundation, and provided in the COPYING file.

How much is the Linux kernel worth?

The Linux Foundation has released a report estimating the Linux kernel to be worth $1.4 billion, and the Fedora 9 distribution to be worth just over $10 billion.

How is Linux licensed?

Q: How Is Linux Licensed? A: Linus has placed the Linux kernel under the GNU General Public License, which basically means that you may freely copy, change, and distribute it, but you may not impose any restrictions on further distribution, and you must make the source code available.

Who developed Linux kernel?

Linus Torvalds
Linux® is an open source operating system (OS). It was originally conceived of and created as a hobby by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Linus, while at university, sought to create an alternative, free, open source version of the MINIX operating system, which was itself based on the principles and design of Unix.

Is Linux a kernel or operating system?

Linux, in its nature, is not an operating system; it’s a Kernel. The Kernel is part of the operating system – And the most crucial. For it to be an OS, it is supplied with GNU software and other additions giving us the name GNU/Linux. Linus Torvalds made Linux open source in 1992, one year after it’s creation.

Who manages the Linux kernel?

Corporate Contributions. During the period of this most recent 2016 report, the top contributing companies to the Linux kernel were Intel (12.9 percent), Red Hat (8 percent), Linaro (4 percent), Samsung (3.9 percent), SUSE (3.2 percent), and IBM (2.7 percent).

Why is Linux called kernel?

A kernel is a constituent part of a larger operating system — usually, in Linux distributions, the larger operating system contains a base of GNU tools, which is why many people refer to the kernel as Linux, and the overall operating system as “GNU/Linux” (although many people don’t make this distinction).

Is it possible to build a small Linux kernel?

The way Linux is maintained is mostly by keeping everything in the mainline repo. Building of small stripped-down kernels is supported by config options to control #ifdef s. So you can absolutely build tiny stripped-down kernels which compile only a tiny part of the code in the whole repo.

How many lines of code does Linux kernel have?

According to cloc run against 3.13, Linux is about 12 million lines of code. 7 million LOC in drivers/ 2 million LOC in arch/ only 139 thousand LOC in kernel/

Is it possible to build a stripped down Linux kernel?

So you can absolutely build tiny stripped-down kernels which compile only a tiny part of the code in the whole repo. The extensive use of Linux in embedded systems has led to better support for leaving stuff out than Linux had years earlier when the kernel source tree was smaller.