The kernel is just one piece of the whole. You don't call it "BlueZ" just because the Bluetooth subsystem is BlueZ. The main achievement, the thing that started it all, was the idea to have a free operating system; more than that: the clear definition of what freedom in this context meant. This started 1983/1984 with the GNU project, which led to the GPL. Software projects come and go. It's Stallman's vision that drives it all and remains the only constant in the end. Without him, there'd be no Ubuntu, no Debian and no Sailfish OS. Nobody would remember a young finnish guy who experimented with a kernel in the early 1990s if this kernel wouldn't have fit the ecosystem so perfectly that others had already created.

People only tend attribute everything to Torvalds because he's better looking and aggressively marketing himself. He has the social skills that RMS lacks. That doesn't mean his version of history is true.