Linus Torvalds wrote: http://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/Historic/old-versions/RELNOTES-0.01 Sadly, a kernel by itself gets you nowhere. To get a working system you need a shell, compilers, a library etc. These are separate parts and may be under a stricter (or even looser) copyright. Most of the tools used with linux are GNU software and are under the GNU copyleft. These tools aren't in the distribution - ask me (or GNU) for more info. Mike