Linus Torvalds

Quotes are word for word from the source.

• The launch of Linux

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

  Our noteLinus Torvalds announced his new project to the Minix newsgroup.

• Open source licensing

  “Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.”

  Our noteLinus reflected on the decision to use the General Public License.

• Unexpected product evolution

  “The single nicest thing about Linux as far as I'm concerned has been how it has evolved in ways I hadn't expected it to. People are doing things with Linux that I never envisioned.”

  Our noteDiscussing the evolution of Linux and how users utilize it.

• Development models

  “There really are only two acceptable models of development: "think and analyze" or "years and years of testing on thousands of machines". Those two really do work.”

  Our noteTorvalds explained the only reliable ways to write code that actually works.

• Leveraging open source

  “I am a lazy person, which is why I like open source, for other people to do work for me.”

  Our noteLinus discusses why he prefers the open source model.

• Focus on strengths

  “the most important part of open source is that people are allowed to do what they are good at”

  Our noteLinus talks about the core value of open source collaboration.

• Know your limits

  “I'm actually a horrible MIS person, and I would never want to maintain my own server. I'm a programmer for chrissake!”

  Our noteHe was explaining why he dislikes server management despite being a kernel developer.

• Tooling preferences

  “I'd rather maintain just a keybinding file than a whole scrappy editor... I'm not interested in yet another "runs in a terminal" editor, or some even older editor”

  Our noteHe was looking for a modern GUI editor that supports his specific old keybindings.

• Ethics of monetization

  “I do not believe in monetizing my repositories. If you believe crypto-currencies are anything but a scam, I have a bridge to sell you. But I'm not selling source code.”

  Our noteLinus was clarifying that he did not approve of tokenizing his git repositories.

• Objective decision making

  “If you don't have technical reasons, you don't have reasons.”

  Our noteLinus was discussing the criteria for making decisions in software development.