Linus Torvalds famous quotes

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

#Fun #Program #Programming

Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Technology #Evil #Microsoft

The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licensable under v3, but not the kernel in general. And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it. So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code. You think v2 or later is the default. It's not. The _default_ is to not allow conversion. Conversion isn't going to happen.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Thinking #Keys #People

In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Real #Destiny #Source

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

#People #Hey #Window

In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved.
-- Linus Torvalds

#People #Source #Wells

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

#Linux #Use #Care

Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Data #Worry #Structure

In my opinion MS is a lot better at making money than it is at making good operating systems.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Opinion #Making Money #Operating Systems

I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Trust #Differences #Data

Artists usually don't make all that much money, and they often keep their artistic hobby despite the money rather than due to it.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Artist #Hobbies #Artistic

Every time I see some piece of medical research saying that caffeine is good for you, I high-five myself. Because I'm going to live forever.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Forever #Pieces #Research

Any program is only as good as it is useful.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Program

I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room - by far - should be the occasional purring of the cat.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Cat #Office #Want

We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Doe #Linux #Infinite

Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Done #Programming #Ability

Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Computer #Economy #Worst

Part of doing Linux was that I had to communicate a lot more instead of just being a geek in front of a computer.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Linux #Just Being #Geek

Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Programming #Show Me #Shows

Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Thinking #People #Grace

I don't try to be a threat to MicroSoft, mainly because I don't really see MS as competition. Especially not Windows-the goals of Linux and Windows are simply so different.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Goal #Competition #Trying

I get the biggest enjoyment from the random and unexpected places. Linux on cellphones or refrigerators, just because it's so not what I envisioned it. Or on supercomputers.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Linux #Unexpected #Refrigerators

I try to avoid long-range plans and visions - that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Long #Vision #Trying

I'm generally a very pragmatic person: that which works, works.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Economy #Pragmatic #Persons

If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over, the end result is bad.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Hate #Want #Ends

All operating systems sucks, but Linux just sucks less
-- Linus Torvalds

#Linux #Operating Systems

If you want to travel around the world and be invited to speak at a lot of different places, just write a Unix operating system.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Writing #Different #World

Only wimps use tape backup. REAL men just upload their important stuff on ftp and let the rest of the world mirror it.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Real #Men #Mirrors

The thing I love about diving is the flowing feeling. I like a sport where the whole point is to move as little as humanly possible so your air supply will last longer. That's my kind of sport. Where the amount of effort spent is absolutely minimal.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Sports #Moving #Air

Avoiding complexity reduces bugs.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Simplicity #Bugs #Complexity

Software is like sex: It's better when it's free.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Sex #Technology #Software

There's innovation in Linux. There are some really good technical features that I'm proud of. There are capabilities in Linux that aren't in other operating systems.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Innovation #Proud #Linux

To be a nemesis, you have to actively try to destroy something, don't you? Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Technology #Trying #Microsoft

To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power over people. Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Powerful #People #Giving

Turtles are very stable and have been around forever. But they have problems adapting. When humans came along, turtles came under serious threat. Biodiversity is good, and I think it is good in technology as well.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Technology #Thinking #Turtles

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

#Issues #Linux #Use

Given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Bugs #Enough #Shallow

The bulk of all patents are crap. Spending time reading them is stupid. It's up to the patent owner to do so, and to enforce them.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Stupid #Reading #Technology

I love making friends.... it's people I can't stand.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Funny #Witty #People

I'd much rather have 15 people arguing about something than 15 people splitting into two camps, each side convinced it's right and not talking to the other.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Talking #Two #People

Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Practice #Sometimes #Theory

Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Complaining #Live By

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

#Needs #Enough #Economy

There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area, and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach.
-- Linus Torvalds

#People #Way #Linux

An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Numbers #Monkeys #Infinite

It's what I call "mental masturbation", when you engage is some pointless intellectual exercise that has no possible meaning.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Exercise #Intellectual #Masturbation

I think Leopard is a much better system [than Windows Vista] ... but OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Thinking #Scary #Leopards

And what's the Internet without the rick-roll?
-- Linus Torvalds

#Internet

So I would not be surprised if the globbing libraries, for example, will do NFD-mangling in order to glob "correctly", so even programs ported from real Unix might end up getting pathnames subtly changed into NFD as part of some hot library-on-library action with UTF hackery inside.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Real #Order #Library

People will realize that software is not a product; you use it to build a product,
-- Linus Torvalds

#People #Use #Realizing

There are literally several levels of SCO being wrong. And even if we were to live in that alternate universe where SCO would be right, they'd still be wrong.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Would Be #Levels #Stills

It was such a relief to program in user mode for a change. Not having to care about the small stuff is wonderful.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Relief #Care #Stuff

I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly because they know they don't have to.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Thinking #People #Trust Me

C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language that C is that actively encourages you to use simple and direct constructs.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Simple #Use #Helping

I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Thinking #Hatred #Microsoft

There are "extremists" in the free software world, but that's one major reason why I don't call what I do "free software" any more. I don't want to be associated with the people for whom it's about exclusion and hatred.
-- Linus Torvalds

#People #Hatred #World

Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Black And White #Thinking #People

C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Use #Facts #Language

Modern PCs are horrible. ACPI is a complete design disaster in every way. But we're kind of stuck with it. If any Intel people are listening to this and you had anything to do with ACPI, shoot yourself now, before you reproduce.
-- Linus Torvalds

#People #Design #Listening

Eventually the revolutionaries become the established culture, and then what will they do
-- Linus Torvalds

#Culture #Anarchy #Revolutionary

Helsinki isn't all that bad. It's a very nice city, and it's cold really only in wintertime.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Nice #Cities #Cold

I never felt that the naming issue was all that important, but I was obviously wrong, judging by how many people felt. I tell people to call it just plain Linux and nothing more.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Issues #People #Judging

Often your 'fixes' are actually removing capabilities that you had, because they were 'too confusing to the user'. GNOME seems to be developed by interface Nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Confusion #Confusing #Complicated

OK, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Father #Real #Men

I don't doubt at all that virtualization is useful in some areas. What I doubt rather strongly is that it will ever have the kind of impact that the people involved in virtualization want it to have.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Impact #People #Doubt

Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, THEN, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Fire #Trying #Documentation

Personally, I'm not interested in making device drivers look like user-level. They aren't, they shouldn't be, and microkernels are just stupid.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Stupid #Looks #Levels

A lot of people still like Solaris, but I'm in active competition with them, and so I hope they die.
-- Linus Torvalds

#People #Competition #Solaris

I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" - anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least thought about in pretty much any context").
-- Linus Torvalds

#Crazy #Believe #Fundamentals

Whoever came up with "hold the shift key for eight seconds to turn on 'your keyboard is buggered' mode" should be shot.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Keys #Eight #Keyboards

The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Children #Memories #Management

My name is Linus, and I am your God.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Names

A consumer doesn't take anything away: he doesn't actually consume anything. Giving the same thing to a thousand consumers is not really any more expensive than giving it to just one.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Giving #Thousand #Consumers

You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Behavior

Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.
-- Linus Torvalds

#Linux