Licensing and using the Linux kernel [closed]

Question

I would like to write my own OS, and would like to temporarily jump over the complicated task of writing the kernel and come back to it later by using the Linux kernel in the mean time. However, I would like to provide the OS as closed source for now. What license is the Linux kernel under and is it possible to use it for release with a closed source OS?

Edit: I am not interested in closing the source of the Linux kernel, I would still provide that as open sourced. I am wondering if I could use a closed source OS with an open source kernel.

Further edit: By OS, I mean the system that runs on top of the kernel and is used to launch other programs. I certainly did not mean to include the kernel in the closed source statement.

Answer 1

You can of course write whatever closed-source OS over the Linux kernel that you like provided you are compatible with the licensing of components you link against.

Of course that's likely to include the gnu C library (or some other C library). You may also need some command line utilities which will probably be GPL to do things such as filesystem maintenance, network setup etc. But provided you leave those as their own standalone programs, it should not be a problem.

Anything that you link into the kernel itself (e.g. custom modules, patches) should be released as open source GPL to comply with the kernel's licence.