Linus Torvalds

“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.”

“Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.”

“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.”

“I see myself as a technical person who chose a great project and a great way of doing that project.”

“There's innovation in Linux. There are some really good technical features that I'm proud of. There are capabilities in Linux that aren't in other operating systems.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I like to think that I've been a good manager. That fact has been very instrumental in making Linux a successful product.”

“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.”

“Most good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.”

“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.”

“My name is Linus, and I am your God.”

“I've never regretted not making Linux shareware: I really don't like the pay for use binary shareware programs.”

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

“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.”

“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 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.”

“Talk is cheap. Show me the code.”

“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.”

“There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area, and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach.”