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Linus Torvalds

Linus Torvalds Books

Software Engineer

Linus Torvalds, born on December 28, 1969, is a renowned software engineer. He is the founder of the Linux operating system, which has had a profound impact on the global computer industry. During his studies at the University of Helsinki, Torvalds began developing Linux, releasing the first version in 1991. His work has not only promoted the development of open-source software but also advanced personal computer and server technology.

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Related Quotes

“Helsinki isn't all that bad. It's a very nice city, and it's cold really only in wintertime.”

Cities Economy Nice Cold Very Nice Wintertime Helsinki

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

People Important Felt Issues Judging Linux

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Often your 'fixes' are actually removing capabilities that you had, because they were 'too confusing to the user'. GNOME seems to be developed by interface Nazis, where consistently the excuse for not doing something is not 'it's too complicated to do', but 'it would confuse users'.”

Seems Excuse Complicated Confusion Capability Users Consistently Nazi Confusing Interfaces Gnome

Author:Linus Torvalds

“The Linux kernel is under the GPL version 2. Not anything else. Some individual files are licensable under v3, but not the kernel in general. And quite frankly, I don't see that changing. I think it's insane to require people to make their private signing keys available, for example. I wouldn't do it. So I don't think the GPL v3 conversion is going to happen for the kernel, since I personally don't want to convert any of my code. You think v2 or later is the default. It's not. The _default_ is to not allow conversion. Conversion isn't going to happen.”

People Thinking Want Happens Individual Example Keys Conversation Available Conversion Versions Insane Code Files Default Signing Linux Kernel

Author:Linus Torvalds

“The fame and reputation part came later, and never was much of a motivator, although it did enable me to work without feeling guilty about neglecting my studies.”

Feelings Study Fame Reputation Guilty Neglect Feeling Guilty

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Only religious fanatics and totalitarian states equate morality with legality.”

States Religious Morality Hippie Fanatics Legality Religious Fanatics Totalitarian State

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

People Ifs Thinking Grace Angry Careful Fats Excess Linux Charging Operating Systems Penguins

Author:Linus Torvalds

“If you like using CVS, you should be in some kind of mental institution or somewhere else.”

Ifs Should Kind Institutions Somewhere Else

Author:Linus Torvalds

“In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people.”

People Ends Drug Just Say No Say No To Drugs

Author:Linus Torvalds

“The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease.”

Disease Syndromes

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

Facts Running Groups Worst Design Industry Ugly Damn Monkeys Lsd

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

People Claims Idiot Incompetent

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

Firsts Perfect First Time Code

Author:Linus Torvalds

“If you have ever done any security work - and it did not involve the concept of "network of trust" - it wasn't security work, it was - masturbation. I don't know what you were doing. But trust me, it's the only way you can do security, it's the only way you can do development.”

Ifs Knows Way Done Can Do Security Development Concepts Working It Trust Me Masturbation

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

Two Facts Bigs Sides Answers Issues Depends Response Range Two Sides Right Answers Big Questions

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Real quality means making sure that people are proud of the code they write, that they're involved and taking it personally.”

People Writing Mean Real Quality Proud Involved Code

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

Forever Five Pieces Research Medical Live Forever Caffeine Medical Research

Author:Linus Torvalds

“OK, I admit it. I was just a front-man for the real fathers of Linux, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus.”

Men Real Father Fronts Teeth Fairy Santa Santa Claus Linux Tooth Fairy Real Father

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

People Want Kind Doubt Involved Areas Impact

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, then, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver.”

Should Trying Use Realizing Levels Fire Drivers Laughed Documentation

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Personally, I'm not interested in making device drivers look like user-level. They aren't, they shouldn't be, and microkernels are just stupid.”

Looks Levels Stupid Devices Drivers Users Not Interested

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

People Stills Dies Competition Active Solaris

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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").”

Should Believe Process Happened Crazy Huge Evolution Fundamentals Believer Uninformed

Author:Linus Torvalds

“C++ is a horrible language. It's made more horrible by the fact that a lot of substandard programmers use it, to the point where it's much much easier to generate total and utter crap with it.”

Made Facts Use Language Easier Horrible Crap Programmers

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them.”

People Thinking Kind I Can Matter Bigs Black White Deals Security Crowds Bunch Black And White Monkeys Big Deal Concentrating

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

Exercise Intellectual Call Me Pointless Masturbation

Author:Linus Torvalds

“I think Leopard is a much better system [than Windows Vista] but OS X in some ways is actually worse than Windows to program for. Their file system is complete and utter crap, which is scary.”

Thinking Way Program Window Scary Crap Files Vistas Leopards

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

Ifs Real Ends Might Action Order Example Changed Program Hot Library Unix

Author:Linus Torvalds

“There are literally several levels of SCO being wrong. And even if we were to live in that alternate universe where SCO would be right, they'd still be wrong.”

Ifs Stills Would Be Universe Levels Being Wrong

Author:Linus Torvalds

“It was such a relief to program in user mode for a change. Not having to care about the small stuff is wonderful.”

Care Stuff Wonderful Program Relief Users Small Stuff

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

People Thinking Knows Trust Me

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

Enough Helping Use Language Simple Direct Spots Programming Constructs Programming Languages Inconvenient

Author:Linus Torvalds

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

Thinking May Disease Jokes Hatred Microsoft

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

People World Want Reason Majors Hatred Reason Why Software Extremist Exclusion

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Whoever came up with "hold the shift key for eight seconds to turn on 'your keyboard is buggered' mode" should be shot.”

Should Turns Keys Shots Eight Seconds Turn-on Keyboards

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Hmmm, completely a-religious - atheist. I find that people seem to think religion brings morals and appreciation of nature. I actually think it detracts from both.”

People Thinking Seems Religious Moral Atheism Atheist Appreciation Positive Atheism Hmmm

Author:Linus Torvalds

“People will realize that software is not a product; you use it to build a product.”

People Use Realizing Products Software

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Modern PCs are horrible. ACPI is a complete design disaster in every way. But we're kind of stuck with it. If any Intel people are listening to this and you had anything to do with ACPI, shoot yourself now, before you reproduce.”

People Ifs Way Kind Modern Design Listening Stuck Disaster Horrible

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Right now some people are just running around in circles and claiming that moving things to the kernel automatically makes it more stable. I'm telling you that the kernel is stable not because it's a kernel, but because I refuse to listen to arguments like this.”

People Running Moving Right Now Argument Refuse Circles Stable Kernel

Author:Linus Torvalds

“I am pragmatic. That which works, works, and theory can go screw itself. However, my pragmatism also extends to maintainability, which is why I also want it done well.”

Want Wells Done Theory Screws Pragmatic Pragmatism

Author:Linus Torvalds

“I changed the Linux copyright license to be the GPL some time in the first half of 1992. Mostly because I had hated the lack of a cheaply and easily available UNIX when I had looked for one a year before.”

Years Firsts Half Changed Available Hated License Copyright Linux Unix

Author:Linus Torvalds

“I'd like to point out that I don't think that there is anything fundamentally superior in the GPL as compared to the BSD license, for example. But the GPL is what I want to program with, because unlike the BSD license it guarantees that anybody who works on the project in the future will also contribute their changes back to the community.”

Thinking Want Community Example Projects Program Superiors Guarantees License Guarantees That

Author:Linus Torvalds

“When I do programming in my free time and for my own enjoyment, I really want to have a kind of protection: knowing that when I improve a program those improvements will continue to be available to me and others in future versions of the program.”

Want Kind My Own Knowing Program Available Protection Improvement Versions Enjoyment Programming Free Time

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Other people have other goals, and sometimes the BSD style licenses are better for those goals. I personally tend to prefer the GPL, but that really doesn't mean that the GPL is any way inherently superior - it depends on what you want the license to do.”

People Way Want Mean Sometimes Goal Style Depends What You Want Superiors License Licenses

Author:Linus Torvalds

“I never try to make any far-reaching predictions, so much can happen that it simply only makes you look stupid a few years later.”

Trying Years Looks Happens Stupid Reaching Predictions

Author:Linus Torvalds

“I obviously think that freely available software can not only keep up with the evolution of commercial software, but often exceed what you can do commercially.”

Thinking Can Do Evolution Available Software Can Not Exceed

Author:Linus Torvalds

“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.”

Way Want Needs Writing Has Beens Use Care My Own Attitude Products Negative Alternatives Microsoft Negative Attitude

Author:Linus Torvalds

“Bill Gates really seems to be much more of a business man than a technologist, while I prefer to think of Linux in technical terms rather than as a means to money. As such, I'm not very likely to make the same kind of money that Bill made.”

Thinking Men Kind Mean Made Seems Term Bills Gates Linux Business Man

Author:Linus Torvalds

“One of the reasons that I really don't mind that people are selling Linux commercially is exactly because it does make me feel good that people use the product.”

People Feels Mind Doe Reason Use Products Selling Feel Good Linux

Author:Linus Torvalds

About the Author

Born: December 28, 1969
Known for: Software Engineer
Quotes: 225

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