Linus Torvalds Quotes

Linus Torvalds (43)

Birth:	28th December, 1969
Nationality:	American, Finnish
Profession:	Hacker, Software Engineer

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• Linus Torvalds

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Births

• 1918 - Coleman Young
• 1944 - Patti LaBelle
• 1958 - Wayne Williams
• 1522 - John Jewel
• 1794 - William Whewell

Deaths

• 1964 - Thomas Vernor Smith
• 1879 - William Lloyd Garrison
• 1991 - Gene Clark
• 1996 - Joseph Mitchell
• 1612 - Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury

• You won’t get sued for anticompetitive behavior.

  Linus Torvalds

• When you say “I wrote a program that crashed Windows,” people just stare at you blankly and say “Hey, I got those with the system, for free.”

  Linus Torvalds

• When it comes to software, I much prefer free software, because I have very seldom seen a program that has worked well enough for my needs, and having sources available can be a life-saver.

  Linus Torvalds

• What commercialism has brought into Linux has been the incentive to make a good distribution that is easy to use and that has all the packaging issues worked out.

  Linus Torvalds

• There are lots of Linux users who don’t care how the kernel works, but only want to use it. That is a tribute to how good Linux is.

  Linus Torvalds

• The thing with Linux is that the developers themselves are actually customers too: that has always been an important part of Linux.

  Linus Torvalds

• The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.

  Linus Torvalds

• The fame and reputation part came later, and never was much of a motivator, although it did enable me to work without feeling guilty about neglecting my studies.

  Linus Torvalds

• The cyberspace earnings I get from Linux come in the format of having a Network of people that know me and trust me, and that I can depend on in return.

  Linus Torvalds

• That’s what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. It’s a positive feedback cycle.

  Linus Torvalds

• Software is like s*x: it’s better when it’s free.

  Linus Torvalds

• See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.

  Linus Torvalds

• Programmers are in the enviable position of not only getting to do what they want to, but because the end result is so important they get paid to do it. There are other professions like that, but not that many.

  Linus Torvalds

• People enjoy the interaction on the Internet, and the feeling of belonging to a group that does something interesting: that’s how some software projects are born.

  Linus Torvalds

• Non-technical questions sometimes don’t have an answer at all.

  Linus Torvalds

• My name is Linus, and I am your God.

  Linus Torvalds

• Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.

  Linus Torvalds

• Making Linux GPL’d was definitely the best thing I ever did.

  Linus Torvalds

• Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense.

  Linus Torvalds

• Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.

  Linus Torvalds