Stumbleupon much?

There are dozens of these, each trying to out-nerd the last.

>>153
Maybe that's how Linux staarted out...

>>154
Nope. Linux was created because there was no free kernel at the time. There was the Hurd, but it was far from finished.

>>156
Not quite. It was originally a way to explore the 386 -- and studying the original 0.x line is an excellent, compactish way of doing that.

Linus became aware of the GPL afterwards, and never had been as big on the freedom aspect as he has on "this is a good way to develop infrastructure, but probably not everything" philosophy. If you keep up with the MLs you'll catch him flaming all over someone about that from time to time -- usually after they've suggested something technically retarded under the guise of "being more free", or even worse, covering up for incompetence with the same rhetoric.

Not saying freedom isn't important to him, me or generally everybody in some sense, but the purpose of the kernel wasn't initially freedom, it was something almost as important (but different): self interest and FUN.