Quotes By Linus Torvalds

Any program is only as good as it is useful.

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

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

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

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

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

My name is Linus, and I am your God.

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

I don't expect to go hungry if I decide to leave the University. Resume: Linux looks pretty good in many places.

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

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

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.

Helsinki may not be as cold as you make it out to be, but California is still a lot nicer. I don't remember the last time I couldn't walk around in shorts all day.

Finnish companies tend to be very traditional, not taking many risks. Silicon Valley is completely different: people here really live on the edge.

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

The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.

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.

I very seldom worry about other systems. I concentrate pretty fully on just making Linux the best I can.

You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.

I do get my pizzas paid for by Linux indirectly.

I've never regretted not making Linux shareware: I really don't like the pay for use binary shareware programs.

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.

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

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.

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.

I used to be interested in Windows NT, but the more I see it, the more it looks like traditional Windows with a stabler kernel. I don't find anything technically interesting there.

I've been very happy with the commercial Linux CD-ROM vendors linux Red Hat.

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.

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

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.