Linus Torvalds Quotes

On the internet nobody can hear you being subtle.

When somebody who is different shows himself to be different in a good way, that's how development happens.

I made very sure that I did not get involved with any of the commercial Linux companies, exactly so that I would be neutral and not ever seen as "working for the competition".

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.

No-one has ever called me a cool dude. I'm somewhere between geek and normal.

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.

I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'

I never try to make any far-reaching predictions, so much can happen that it simply only makes you look stupid a few years later.

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.

The way to do good basic design isn't actually to be really smart about it, but to try to have a few basic concepts.

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.

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

I see myself as a technical person who chose a great project and a great way of doing that project.

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'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.

If you like using CVS, you should be in some kind of mental institution or somewhere else.

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 have an ego the size of a small planet.

I think one thing I do pretty well is not taking myself too seriously.

If it is relevant there is always somebody else out there.

Generally, the best way to learn git is probably to first only do very basic things and not even look at some of the things you can do until you are familiar and confident about the basics.

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

The correct form factor for a laptop is obviously 12" and 2 lbs, and I don't understand why everybody gets that wrong.

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

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

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

I spend a lot more time than any person should have to talking with lawyers and thinking about intellectual property issues.

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.

I don't have any authority over Linux other than this notion that I know what I'm doing.

I really never wanted to do source control management at all and felt that it was just about the least interesting thing in the computing world .

I think of myself as an engineer, not as a visionary or 'big thinker.' I don't have any lofty goals.

Once you start thinking more about where you want to be than about making the best product, you're screwed.

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.

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.

I am very happy about Android obviously. I use Android, and it's actually made cellphones very usable.

Github is an excellent hosting service; I have nothing against it at all.

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

If you want an application to be portable, you don't necessarily create an abstraction layer like a microkernel so much as you program intelligently.

I don't think I'm unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.

And 1.1.81 is officially BugFree(tm), so if you receive any bug-reports on it, you know they are just evil lies.

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 think that freely available software can not only keep up with the evolution of commercial software, but often exceed what you can do commercially.

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.

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'm a big non-believer in manual driver and kernel configuration, be it visual or not.

Working in lock-step simply isn't a good idea. Never has been, never will be.

In personal conversations with technical people, I call myself a hacker. But when I'm talking to journalists I just say "programmer" or something like that.

I'm a technical manager, but I don't have to take care of people. I only have to worry about technology itself.

I claim that Mach people (and apparently FreeBSD) are incompetent idiots.