Linus Torvalds: What commercialism has brought to Linux has been the i...

Any program is only as good as it is useful.

Linus Torvalds

program

Before the commercial ventures, Linux tended to be rather hard to set up, because most of the developers were motivated mainly by their own interests.

Linus Torvalds

linux venture economy

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

Linus Torvalds

real writing mean

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.

Linus Torvalds

levels stupid looks

I'd much rather have 15 people arguing about something than 15 people splitting into two camps, each side convinced it's right and not talking to the other.

Linus Torvalds

talking two people

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

issues two-sides answers

Today, I will offer free web hosting and developpement helps for

Linus Torvalds

projects helping today

The correct form factor for a laptop is obviously 12" and 2 lbs, and I don't understand why everybody gets that wrong.

Linus Torvalds

factors laptops form

While I may not get any money from Linux, I get a huge personal satisfaction from having written something that people really enjoy using, and that people find to be the best alternative for their needs.

Linus Torvalds

linux satisfaction people

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

Linus Torvalds

syndromes disease

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.

Linus Torvalds

stupid trying years

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.

Linus Torvalds

guarantees-that community thinking

Software is like sex. It's only good when it's for free.

Linus Torvalds

software sex

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.

Linus Torvalds

care writing attitude

One of the questions I've always hated answering is how do people make money in open source. And I think that Caldera and Red Hat - and there are a number of other Linux companies going public - basically show that yes, you can actually make money in the open-source area.

Linus Torvalds

yes-you-can numbers thinking

The way to do good basic design isn't actually to be really smart about it, but to try to have a few basic concepts.

Linus Torvalds

smart design trying

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

Linus Torvalds

linux memories children

Part of doing Linux was that I had to communicate a lot more instead of just being a geek in front of a computer.

Linus Torvalds

linux geek just-being

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.

Linus Torvalds

men mean thinking

One of the reasons I like open source is that it allows people to work on the parts they are good at, and I don't mean just on a technical level; some people are into the whole selling and support, and that's just not me.

Linus Torvalds

support mean people

What commercialism has brought to Linux has been the incentive to make a good distribution that is easy to use and that has all the packaging issues worked out.