Your favorite Linus quotes?

[Cyraxzz]

Mine


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

My name is Linus, and I am your God.
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

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

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 a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100 mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
Linus Torvalds

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

“If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.”
Linus Torvalds

[MenZa]

Hi, my name is Linus Torvalds, and I pronounce Linux Linux

[jayemef]

"We're back to the times when men were men and wrote their own device drivers."
-- Linus Torvalds


Love this one.

[matthew]

"If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program."

"You know you're brilliant, but maybe you'd like to understand what you did 2 weeks from now."

"Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say "hey, that _almost_ works for me", and they'll get involved in the project."

[sapo]

"If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program."

"You know you're brilliant, but maybe you'd like to understand what you did 2 weeks from now."

"Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small _trivial_ project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way _useful_ first, and then others will say "hey, that _almost_ works for me", and they'll get involved in the project."
I dont like him, but i always liked this quote :)

"If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program."

[Rackerz]

I didn't know he quoted so often. Brilliant quotes.

[brentoboy]

"Gnome seems to be developed by interface nazis,"
-linus

[JoWilly]

"I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.

This "users are idiots, and are confused by functionality" mentality of
Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will
use it. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long
since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.

Please, just tell people to use KDE"
-- Linus Torvalds


http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html (http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html)

[Rhapsody]

In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.

Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect.

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.

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.

"regression testing"? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect.

Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's _my_ choice, dammit.

I'm always right. This time I'm just even more right than usual.

The fact that ACPI was designed by a group of monkeys high on LSD, and is some of the worst designs in the industry obviously makes running it at _any_ point pretty damn ugly.

My personal opinion of Mach is not very high. Frankly, it's a piece of crap. It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and even managed to make up a few of its own.

For example, the GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ("Sharks with lasers on their heads!!"), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me back in kind. I made source code available to them, they have to make their changes to it available to me. After that, they can fry me with their shark-mounted lasers all they want.
He does say some very quotable stuff.

[jayemef]

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

[Iandefor]

"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."

"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."

"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Cox), but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well."

"Your job is being a professor and researcher: That's one hell of a good excuse for some of the brain-damages of Minix (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minix)."

[Harold P]

" They may. Dave Taylor is a nice guy, and he might rebuild it for us. On the
other hand, the Linux philosophy is "laugh in the face of danger". Oops.
Wrong one. "Do it yourself". That's it.
I just _know_ that there is somebody out there that has too much time on his
hands (or rather, he has time on his hands better spent doing something
productive like reading for exams or doing real work, and he'd much rather
spend the time on something else). Now, that somebody out there has a
"mission in life": to binary-patch a game to make it work on a newer version
of linux?

"To boldly binary patch commercial programs where no commercial program has
been binary patched before..". Has a certain ring to it, doesn't it? Now the
question is just: "Who is first?" "



Love it :)

[ubuntu27]

"“Some people have been seen as freeloaders, selling Linux CDs and hardware and making money that way, ... But they're doing Linux a big favor by making it easier to install and approachable to normal people. It makes it a more viable OS.”



“One of the questions I've always hated answering is how do people make money in open source. And I think that Caldera and Red Hat -- and there are a number of other Linux companies going public -- basically show that yes, you can actually make money in the open-source area.” (http://en.thinkexist.com/quotation/one-of-the-questions-i-ve-always-hated-answering/596344.html)

[Shay Stephens]

"You know, before I answer any more questions there's something I wanted to say. Having received all your letters over the years, and I've spoken to many of you, and some of you have traveled... y'know... hundreds of miles to be here, I'd just like to say... GET A LIFE, will you people?"

Oh, wait, that was Shanter...Never Mind :D

[kabus]

http://lists.osdl.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2005-December/000395.html


There is no such thing as a "majority of end users" in general.

[AlphaMack]

On OS X: "Frankly, I think it's a piece of crap."

[slimdog360]

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


hahahahha. Thats the best one.

[MaximB]

I don't know any quotes.
but I REALLY would like to know , were is he now and what he doing thouse days... anyone ...?

[matthew]

I don't know any quotes.
but I REALLY would like to know , were is he now and what he doing thouse days... anyone ...?http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds

[Engnome]

I'm doing a (free) operating system (just a hobby, won't be big and professional like gnu) for 386(486) AT clones." (1991)
Linus Torvalds

hehe wrong! (me)


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



"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well."


"The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease."

"We all know Linux is great...it does infinite loops in 5 seconds."

[Zodiac]

"Wireless networking is pointless, so why bother making it work in Linux?"

-Linus

It's a joke... laugh.

[3rdalbum]

Has anyone else read the discussion Linux and one of the developers of Minnix had on Usenet back in the early 90s?

This Minnix guy said some priceless things which I will paraphrase:

"In a few years time, we'll all be using Sun Sparcs"
"Linux has ridiculously bloated system requirements"
"You would have failed any operating-system-programming course, because Linux can't be ported to other platforms and it uses a monolithic kernel when everyone knows that microkernels have better performance".

[loell]

Cry me a river, Jeff.
linus Trovald
;)

[lapsey]

"Linux has ridiculously bloated system requirements"
"You would have failed any operating-system-programming course, because Linux can't be ported to other platforms and it uses a monolithic kernel when everyone knows that microkernels have better performance".

speaking as a 286 owner, I say he's right (yes, minix is on there)

[mkw87]

My favorite was a mailing list where he spoke about slashdot (http://slashdot.org) being a giant wanking fest.

"Gaah. I don’t tend to bother about slashdot, because quite frankly, the whole _point_ of slashdot is to have this big public wanking session with people getting together and making their own “insightful?" comment on any random topic, whether they know anything about it or not."

Source (http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95)

[brentoboy]

"I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves 'why?'. Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix." (1991)

"Portability is for people who cannot write new programs." (1992)


"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people." (2001)

"They [SCO] are smoking crack." (2003)
"I allege that SCO is full of it." (2003)

"it's all part of the plan for world domination."


"It was _such_ a relief to program in user mode for a change. Not having to care about the small stuff is wonderful." (April 14, 2005)

When asked why he called the new software, "git," British slang meaning "a rotten person," he said. 'I'm an egotistical bastard, so I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git.'"


"I like colorized diffs, but let's face it, those particular color choices will make most people decide to pick out their eyes with a fondue fork. And that's not good. Digging in your eye-sockets with a fondue fork is strictly considered to be bad for your health, and seven out of nine optometrists are dead set against the practice. So in order to avoid a lot of blind git users, please apply this patch. "


sources: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Linus_Torvalds