A biography for Linus Torvaldshasn’t been written yet.
“To be honest, the fact that people trust you gives you a lot of power over people. Having another person's trust is more powerful than all other management techniques put together.”
“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.”
“Fairly cheap home computing was what changed my life.”
“I've felt strongly that the advantage of Linux is that it doesn't have a niche or any special market, but that different individuals and companies end up pushing it in the direction they want, and as such you end up with something that is pretty balanced across the board.”
“The thing I love about diving is the flowing feeling. I like a sport where the whole point is to move as little as humanly possible so your air supply will last longer. That's my kind of sport. Where the amount of effort spent is absolutely minimal.”
“The cyberspace earnings I get from Linux come in the format of having a Network of people that know me and trust me, and that I can depend on in return.”
“I don't think I'm unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.”
“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.”
“Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.”
“I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'”
“Intelligence is the ability to avoid doing work, yet getting the work done.”
“I don't see myself as a visionary at all.”
“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.”
“Hey, I'm a good software engineer, but I'm not exactly known for my fashion sense. White socks and sandals don't translate to 'good design sense'.”
“I never felt that the naming issue was all that important, but I was obviously wrong, judging by how many people felt. I tell people to call it just plain Linux and nothing more.”
“Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense.”
“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.”
“In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved.”
“Non-technical questions sometimes don't have an answer at all.”
“You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.”