I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords.
— Linus Torvalds
An individual developer like me cares about writing the new code and making it as interesting and efficient as possible. But very few people want to do the testing.
I think of myself as an engineer, not as a visionary or 'big thinker.' I don't have any lofty goals.
Every once in a while an issue comes up where I have to make a statement. I can't totally avoid all political issues, but I try my best to minimize them. When I do make a statement, I try to be fairly neutral.
If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over, the end result is bad.
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.
In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved.
I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things.
I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do.
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.
I don't see myself as a visionary at all.
I spend a lot more time than any person should have to talking with lawyers and thinking about intellectual property issues.
Fairly cheap home computing was what changed my life.
Hey, I'm a good software engineer, but I'm not exactly known for my fashion sense. White socks and sandals don't translate to 'good design sense'.
You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.
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.
That's what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. It's a positive feedback cycle.
What I find most interesting is how people really have taken Linux and used it in ways and attributes and motivations that I never felt.
The economics of the security world are all horribly, horribly nasty and are largely based on fear, intimidation and blackmail.
By staying neutral, I end up being somebody that everybody can trust. Even if they don't always agree with my decisions, they know I'm not working against them.
No-one has ever called me a cool dude. I'm somewhere between geek and normal.
I've felt strongly that the advantage of Linux is that it doesn't have a niche or any special market, but that different individuals and companies end up pushing it in the direction they want, and as such you end up with something that is pretty balanced across the board.
I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'
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.
Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.
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.
I'm a technical manager, but I don't have to take care of people. I only have to worry about technology itself.
Once you start thinking more about where you want to be than about making the best product, you're screwed.
I don't have any authority over Linux other than this notion that I know what I'm doing.
I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room - by far - should be the occasional purring of the cat.
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.
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.
The thing with Linux is that the developers themselves are actually customers too: that has always been an important part of Linux.
Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.
It's a personality trait: from the very beginning, I knew what I was concentrating on. I'm only doing the kernel - I always found everything around it to be completely boring.
I actually think that I'm a rather optimistic and happy person; it's just that I'm not a very positive person, if you see the difference.
I lose sleep if I end up feeling bad about something I've said. Usually that happens when I send something out without having read it over a few times, or when I call somebody names.
Part of doing Linux was that I had to communicate a lot more instead of just being a geek in front of a computer.
I personally think of Linux development as being pretty non-localized, and I work with all the people entirely over e-mail - even if they happen to be working in the Portland area.
I've actually found the image of Silicon Valley as a hotbed of money-grubbing tech people to be pretty false, but maybe that's because the people I hang out with are all really engineers.
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.
I don't actually go to that many conferences. I do that a couple of times a year. Normally, I am not recognized; people don't throw their panties at me. I'm a perfectly normal person sitting in my den just doing my job.
In many ways, I am very happy about the whole Linux commercial market because the commercial market is doing all these things that I have absolutely zero interest in doing myself.
I see myself as a technical person who chose a great project and a great way of doing that project.
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.
I'm perfectly happy complaining, because it's cathartic, and I'm perfectly happy arguing with people on the Internet because arguing is my favourite pastime - not programming.
I don't think I'm unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.
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.
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.
