The GNU project of Richard Stallman was the main source of inspiration for Linus Benedict Torvalds, a student of computer science at the University of Helsinki.
He discussed a thesis entitled: “Linux: a Portable Operating System”. He released the source code of the kernel and the OS under the GPL license, so that anyone could contribute to the OS development. The achievement of Torvalds began afterwards the technical dispute on the NEWSGROUP USENET with the professor Andrew S. Tanenbaum about the “Monolithic Kernel of Linux ” and the “OS Open source license ”. Tanenbaum, which implemented MINIX OS for educational purpose, said the choice of a Monolithic Kernel and an Open source license for Linux wasn’t adequate and if Torvalds were his student he wouldn’t endorse this project. Torvalds managed a team of technical engineers, hobbyists for developing Linux and promoting the free software as style of life over the world. Linux is one of the most used Unix-like OS in the industrial world and it’s compliance to the POSIX standard of UNIX. Today Torvalds is living in Santa Clara (CA) USA together with his wife and he is managing a team of Linux developers in the Open Source Development Labs Inc. (OSDL) for some industrial partners. The main peculiarity of this OS is the mascot: a penguin named Tux.