So I’ve decided to be a very rich and famous person who doesn’t really care about money, and who is very humble but who still makes a lot of money and is very famous, but is very humble and rich and famous...
A lot of people still like Solaris, but I’m in active competition with them, and so I hope they die.
I’m basically a very lazy person who likes to get credit for things other people actually do.
Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.
I spend a lot more time than any person should have to talking with lawyers and thinking about intellectual property issues.
I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It’s the right way to do things.
I very seldom worry about other systems. I concentrate pretty fully on just making Linux the best I can.
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 think of myself as an engineer, not as a visionary or ‘big thinker.’ I don’t have any lofty goals.
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.
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.
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.
In many cases, the user interface to a program is the most important part for a commercial company: whether the programs works correctly or not seems to be secondary.
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.
Helsinki may not be as cold as you make it out to be, but California is still a lot nicer. I don’t remember the last time I couldn’t walk around in shorts all day.
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.
I used to be interested in Windows NT, but the more I see it, the more it looks like traditional Windows with a stabler kernel. I don’t find anything technically interesting there.
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 see myself as a technical person who chose a great project and a great way of doing that project.