I like to think that I’ve been a good manager. That fact has been very instrumental in making Linux a successful product.
I don’t think I’m unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.
See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.
I try to avoid long-range plans and visions – that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up.
I’m generally a very pragmatic person: that which works, works.
Making Linux GPL’d was definitely the best thing I ever did.
You won’t get sued for anticompetitive behavior.
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.
The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.
Finnish companies tend to be very traditional, not taking many risks. Silicon Valley is completely different: people here really live on the edge.
I do get my pizzas paid for by Linux indirectly.
That’s what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. It’s a positive feedback cycle.
Fairly cheap home computing was what changed my life.
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 don’t expect to go hungry if I decide to leave the University. Resume: Linux looks pretty good in many places.
I don’t have any authority over Linux other than this notion that I know what I’m doing.
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’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.
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.
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.