Linus Torvalds Quotes (150 quotes, page 2)

“Theory and practice sometimes clash. And when that happens, theory loses. Every single time.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to Linux kernel mailing list, 2009-03-25, Torvalds, Linus, 2009-03-25 http://lkml.org/lkml/2009/3/25/632,
2000s, 2009

Time

“Somebody is trying to kill all the kernel developers.”

Linus Torvalds

2010s, 2012

“Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's my choice, dammit.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to linux-kernel mailing list, 2004-10-26, Torvalds, Linus, 2017-04-25 http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0410.3/1101.html,
2000s, 2000-04

“So I would not be surprised if the globbing libraries, for example, will do NFD-mangling in order to glob "correctly", so even programs ported from real Unix might end up getting pathnames subtly changed into NFD as part of some hot library-on-library action with UTF hackery inside.”

Linus Torvalds

-- Wed, 23 Jan 2008 -- http://web.archive.org/20080213164251/kerneltrap.org/mailarchive/git/2008/1/23/595619
Attributed

Change , Parting

“Now, most of you are probably going to be totally bored out of your minds on Christmas day, and here's the perfect distraction. Test 2.6.15-rc7. All the stores will be closed, and there's really nothing better to do in between meals.”

Linus Torvalds

Attributed
Source: LKML 2005.12.24 http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/12/24/92

Christmas , Perfection

“I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease.”

Linus Torvalds

Microsoft Patches Linux; Linus Responds, 2009-06-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2009-06-26 http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7439/1.html,
2000s, 2009

Disease , Thinking , Time

“The thing that has always disturbed me about O_DIRECT is that the whole interface is just stupid, and was probably designed by a deranged monkey on some serious mind-controlling substances. [*]

[*] In other words, it's an Oracleism.”

Linus Torvalds

Notes: from NOTES topic of open(2) manpage, 2009-04-13 http://linux.die.net/man/2/open,
2000s, 2009

Stupidity

“If you need more than 3 levels of indentation, you're screwed anyway, and should fix your program.”

Linus Torvalds

Linux 1.3.53 CodingStyle documentation, 2011-08-13, 1995 https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst,
1990s, 1995-99

“If 386BSD had been available when I started on Linux, Linux would probably never had happened.”

Linus Torvalds

Attributed
Source: Mike Linksvayer's 1993 interview http://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/interview.html in the first issue of Meta Magazine http://gondwanaland.com/meta/history/

“XML is crap. Really. There are no excuses. XML is nasty to parse for humans, and it's a disaster to parse even for computers. There's just no reason for that horrible crap to exist.”

Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds - Google+ (As a reply in the comments section), Torvalds, Linus, 2014-03-06, 2014-03-07 https://plus.google.com/+LinusTorvalds/posts/X2XVf9Q7MfV,
2010s, 2014

“… the Linux philosophy is "laugh in the face of danger". Oops. Wrong one. "Do it yourself."”

Linus Torvalds

That's it.
Post, linux.dev.kernel newsgroup, Google Groups, 1996-10-16, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://groups.google.com/groups?&selm=Pine.LNX.3.91.961016155929.27735D-100000%40linux.cs.Helsinki.FI,
1990s, 1995-99

“I don't ask for money. I don't ask for sexual favors. I don't ask for access to the hardware you design and sell. I just ask for the thing I gave you: source code that I can use myself.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to Linux kernel mailing list, 2007-06-14, Torvalds, Linus, 2010-02-01 http://groups.google.com/group/linux.kernel/msg/29b45885cc7b11b3,
2000s, 2007

Money

“If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won.”

Linus Torvalds

Why Intel and Netscape bought into Linux, 1998-10-01, CNN.com, Needle, David, 2016-03-08 http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9810/01/whylinux.idg/,
1990s, 1995-99

“An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.”

Linus Torvalds

Linux 1.3.53 CodingStyle documentation, 2011-08-13, 1995 https://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/process/coding-style.rst,
1990s, 1995-99

“I'm an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself. First Linux, now git.”

Linus Torvalds

2007-06-14
2000s, 2007

“And what's the Internet without the rick-roll?”

Linus Torvalds

Redhat Bugzilla Bug 439858: swf mozilla plugin - no youtube, 2008-03-31 https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=439858,
2000s, 2008

“I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE.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. I don't use Gnome, because in striving to be simple, it has long since reached the point where it simply doesn't do what I need it to do.Please, just tell people to use KDE.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to usability@gnome.org mailing list, 2005-12-12, 2006-08-28, Torvalds, Linus http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00021.html,
2000s, 2005

People , Disease , Thinking , Personality

“It's what I call "mental masturbation", when you engage is some pointless intellectual exercise that has no possible meaning.”

Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds, Geek of the Week Interview, 2008-07-17, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-07-17 http://www.simple-talk.com/opinion/geek-of-the-week/linus-torvalds,-geek-of-the-week/,
2000s, 2008

Exercises

“A lot of people still like Solaris, but I'm in active competition with them, and so I hope they die.”

Linus Torvalds

Torvalds: Waiting To See Sun's Open Solaris, 2005-02-01, Rooney, Paula, CRN, 2006-08-28 http://www.crn.com/news/applications-os/59300278/torvalds-waiting-to-see-suns-open-solaris.htm,
2000s, 2005

People , Hope

“I'd like to say that I knew this would happen, that it's all part of the plan for world domination.”

Linus Torvalds

[Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, The Linux Edge, http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/opensources/book/linus.html, 2006-08-28, 1-56592-582-3, 1999, O'Reilly & Associates, DiBona, C]
1990s, 1995-99

World , Parting

“Good job. More public indecency, less TSA, that's what I say.”

Linus Torvalds

[In response to http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2012/07/northeast_portland_man_who_str.html]
2010s, 2012

“I don't doubt at all that virtualization is useful in some areas. What I doubt rather strongly is that it will ever have the kind of impact that the people involved in virtualization want it to have.”

Linus Torvalds

Attributed
Source: Desktop_architects list, 2007.8.3 https://lists.linux-foundation.org/pipermail/desktop_architects/2007-August/002446.html

People

“See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too;-)”

Linus Torvalds

Post, comp.os.linux.development.system newsgroup, Google Groups, 1996-07-05, Torvalds, Linus, 2016-05-25 https://groups.google.com/d/msg/comp.os.linux.development.system/EG3iv5IcC3Y/6d_v3HZUZLYJ,
1990s, 1995-99

“Dijkstra probably hates me.”

Linus Torvalds

Comment in Linux kernel 1.1.42's kernel/sched.c file, 2006-08-28 http://www.linuxhq.com/kernel/v1.1/42/kernel/sched.c,
2000s, 2006

Hate

“Lawsuits destroy community. They destroy trust. They would destroy all the goodwill we've built up over the years by being nice.”

Linus Torvalds

https://lists.linuxfoundation.org/pipermail/ksummit-discuss/2016-August/003580.html
2010s, 2017

Communication

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

Linus Torvalds

LKML, April 21, 2006 http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/msg/0aff8e90a185c176
2000s, 2006

People

“There are "extremists" in the free software world, but that's one major reason why I don't call what I do "free software" any more. I don't want to be associated with the people for whom it's about exclusion and hatred.”

Linus Torvalds

Microsoft Patches Linux; Linus Responds, 2009-06-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2009-06-26 http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7439,
2000s, 2009

People , World

“[GPL] version 3 was not a good "here we give you version 2" and then we try to sneak in this new rules and try force everyone to upgrade; that was the part I disliked. The FSF did really sneaky stuff, downright immoral in my opinion.”

Linus Torvalds

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PmHRSeA2c8&t=49m37s
DebConf 14: Q&A with Linus Torvalds
DebConf 2014 Portland
Youtube/Google
49min37
2014
Daniel Gillmore, Ana Guerrerero López.
2010s, 2014

Parting

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

Linus Torvalds

unknown, news:1991Aug25.205708.9541@klaava.Helsinki.FI, Post, news:comp.os.minix, Google Groups, 1991-08-25, 2006-08-28, Torvalds, Linus http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&selm=1991Aug25.205708.9541%40klaava.Helsinki.FI, This was the launch of Linux.
1990s, 1991-94

“Nobody actually creates perfect code the first time around, except me. But there's only one of me.”

Linus Torvalds

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8
Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git
YouTube
Google
2007.
2000s, 2007

Time , Perfection

“If you still don't like it, that's OK: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do.”

Linus Torvalds

Post to comp.os.linux.advocacy newsgroup, 1996-07-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=4sv02t%24j8g%40linux.cs.Helsinki.FI,
1990s, 1995-99

“My personal opinion of Mach is not very high. Frankly, it's a piece of crap. It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and even managed to make up a few of its own.”

Linus Torvalds

2000s, (2001)

Personality

“The fact is, there aren't just two sides to any issue, there's almost always a range of responses, and "it depends" is almost always the right answer in any big question.”

Linus Torvalds

Linus' blog: Black and white, 2008-11-02, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-11-02 http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com/2008/11/black-and-white.html,
2000s, 2008

Question , Dependency

“The memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.”

Linus Torvalds

Attributed
Source: quoted by Alan Cox here http://groups.google.com/group/comp.os.linux.development.system/msg/dc45421fdef2aaa1?pli=1

Children , Memory

“Which mindset is right? Mine, of course. People who disagree with me are by definition crazy. (Until I change my mind, when they can suddenly become upstanding citizens. I'm flexible, and not black-and-white.)”

Linus Torvalds

2000s, 2005

People , Change

“Me, I just don't care about proprietary software. It's not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesn't matter. I think that Open Source can do better, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is by working on Open Source, but it's not a crusade – it's just a superior way of working together and generating code.”

Linus Torvalds

2000s, 2007

Money , Way , Thinking , Evil

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

Linus Torvalds

Message to Linux kernel mailing list, 2006-09-22, Torvalds, Linus, 2008-06-07 http://lkml.org/lkml/2006/9/22/319,
2000s, 2006

People , Thinking

“I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" – anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least thought about in pretty much any context").”

Linus Torvalds

LKML, September 28, 2006 http://groups.google.com/group/fa.linux.kernel/msg/892dc13a2f4c5483
2000s, 2006

Sense

“People say that you should not micro-optimize. But if what you love is micro-optimization… that's what you should do.”

Linus Torvalds

2010s, Audience Q&A following interview panel at Aalto University Center, 2012

Love , People , Optimism

“WE DO NOT BREAK USERSPACE!”

Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds - LKML, Torvalds, Linus, 2012-12-23, 2012-12-29 https://lkml.org/lkml/2012/12/23/75,
2010s, 2012

“Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it;)”

Linus Torvalds

Message, linux-kernel mailing list, IU, 1996-07-20, Torvalds, Linus, 2014-04-26 http://www.webcitation.org/6P8EBZqQX,
1990s, 1995-99

Men , World

“Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say "hey, that almost works for me", and they'll get involved in the project.”

Linus Torvalds

Source: Linux Times, 2004-10-25 http://web.archive.org/web/20050404020308/http://www.linuxtimes.net/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=145,

People , Way , Thinking , Help

“I started Linux as a desktop operating system. And it's the only area where Linux hasn't completely taken over. That just annoys the hell out of me.”

Linus Torvalds

2010s, Audience Q&A following interview panel at Aalto University Center, 2012

Hell

“I allege that SCO is full of it.”

Linus Torvalds

Linux Defended, Galli, Peter, 2003-06-23, 2008-03-01, eWeek http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Linux-and-Open-Source/Linux-Defended,
2000s, 2000-04

“Because if you want me to "act professional", I can tell you that I'm not interested. I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm *also* not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords. Because THAT is what "acting professionally" results in: people resort to all kinds of really nasty things because they are forced to act out their normal urges in unnatural ways.”

Linus Torvalds

<nowiki>Re: [ 00/19 http://marc.info/?l=linux-kernel&m=137392506516022&w=2, 3.10.1-stable review</nowiki>, Torvalds, Linus, 2013-07-15, 2013-07-17]
2010s, 2013

People , Way , Home , Lying

“C++ is in that inconvenient spot where it doesn't help make things simple enough to be truly usable for prototyping or simple GUI programming, and yet isn't the lean system programming language that C is that actively encourages you to use simple and direct constructs.”

Linus Torvalds

Message to gmane.comp.version-control.git mailing list, 2007-09-07, Torvalds, Linus, 2007-09-22 http://article.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/57643,
2000s, 2007

Guy , Help

“I have an ego the size of a small planet, but I'm not _always_ right […].”

Linus Torvalds

Re: clarification on git, central repositories and commit access lists, 20 Aug 2007, Linux Weekly News, kde-core-devel@kde.org, 2007-12-28 http://lwn.net/Articles/246381/,
2000s, 2007

“Do you pine for the nice days of minix-1.1, when men were men and wrote their own device drivers?
[…]
I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves "why?". Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix.”

Linus Torvalds

, announcing Linux version 0.02. The Hurd 0.0 was released in August 1996 and as of 2015, is still not complete.</p>
1990s, 1991-94

Men

“I wish everybody was as nice as I am.”

Linus Torvalds

2010s, Audience Q&A following interview panel at Aalto University Center, 2012

“The fact that ACPI was designed by a group of monkeys high on LSD, and is some of the worst designs in the industry obviously makes running it at any point pretty damn ugly.”

Linus Torvalds

Message, linux-kernel mailing list, 2005-07-31, IU, Torvalds, Linus, 2006-08-28 http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0507.3/2331.html,
2000s, 2005