I think the biggest misperception is that Linus is an open source zealot. He has publicly made it clear many times why he wrote his own kernel in the first place. He was in college studying computer science. At the time he had a shiny new 386 PC that came with whatever Microsoft was offering at the time. He simply didn't like it and wanted to use UNIX. MINIX was available, but too expensive. So out of his own need and desire he wrote his own kernel and made his own personal choice to use the GPL. He respected the License of MINIX and left it alone. Linus has always been a man of principle and freedom of choice. He has always respected the works of others. When he created his kernel he didn't reverse engineer UNIX or anything else. He knew how he wanted it to work and that is how he went about it. I hate to say it but I have to agree with him on this matter. Don't bash someone for the license they chose. The point is that Linus has always been about using what works, else building what you really want. Bit Keeper worked for him. He was never concerned about the license, only what the software could do for him. Perhaps the silver lining to this is that he will sit down and write his own, since he aparently did not like any of the SCMs available. The downside to that is that it will interfere with the development of the kernel.
Slashdot Mirror
I think the biggest misperception is that Linus is an open source zealot. He has publicly made it clear many times why he wrote his own kernel in the first place. He was in college studying computer science. At the time he had a shiny new 386 PC that came with whatever Microsoft was offering at the time. He simply didn't like it and wanted to use UNIX. MINIX was available, but too expensive. So out of his own need and desire he wrote his own kernel and made his own personal choice to use the GPL. He respected the License of MINIX and left it alone. Linus has always been a man of principle and freedom of choice. He has always respected the works of others. When he created his kernel he didn't reverse engineer UNIX or anything else. He knew how he wanted it to work and that is how he went about it. I hate to say it but I have to agree with him on this matter. Don't bash someone for the license they chose. The point is that Linus has always been about using what works, else building what you really want. Bit Keeper worked for him. He was never concerned about the license, only what the software could do for him. Perhaps the silver lining to this is that he will sit down and write his own, since he aparently did not like any of the SCMs available. The downside to that is that it will interfere with the development of the kernel.