I’m simply too content doing what I want to do to really have a very negative attitude towards MicroSoft. They make bad products – so what? I don’t need to care, because I happily don’t have to use them, and writing my own alternative has been a very gratifying experience in many ways.
Every time I see some piece of medical research saying that caffeine is good for you, I high-five myself. Because I’m going to live forever.
With software, you really can replicate and do a lot of very real and active development in parallel, and actually try it out and see what works.
Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.
I get the biggest enjoyment from the random and unexpected places. Linux on cellphones or refrigerators, just because it’s so not what I envisioned it. Or on supercomputers.
On a purely technical side, I’m really very happy with how Linux gets used in a very wide set of different areas. It’s important for development.
Some people have told me they don’t think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They’d be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
If you start doing things because you hate others and want to screw them over, the end result is bad.
The thing with Linux is that the developers themselves are actually customers too: that has always been an important part of Linux.
Artists usually don’t make all that much money, and they often keep their artistic hobby despite the money rather than due to it.
I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room – by far – should be the occasional purring of the cat.
Any program is only as good as it is useful.
I don’t try to be a threat to MicroSoft, mainly because I don’t really see MS as competition. Especially not Windows-the goals of Linux and Windows are simply so different.
If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it.
An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.
I don’t go to conferences quite as much as I used to: having a child and movin away from the university leaves me with less time, but I’ve tried to balance things out – not just spending time with Linux all the time, but having a real job and a real life at the same time.
OK, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.
Language is one of the fundamental principles of human understanding. It is the way we interact with each other and how we grasp the world we live in. Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.
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.
Avoiding complexity reduces bugs.