No-one has ever called me a cool dude. I'm somewhere between geek and normal.
I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'
In many ways, I am very happy about the whole Linux commercial market because the commercial market is doing all these things that I have absolutely zero interest in doing myself.
You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.
I personally think of Linux development as being pretty non-localized, and I work with all the people entirely over e-mail - even if they happen to be working in the Portland area.
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.
I want my office to be quiet. The loudest thing in the room - by far - should be the occasional purring of the cat.
Fairly cheap home computing was what changed my life.
I'm perfectly happy complaining, because it's cathartic, and I'm perfectly happy arguing with people on the Internet because arguing is my favourite pastime - not programming.
The thing with Linux is that the developers themselves are actually customers too: that has always been an important part of Linux.
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 very seldom worry about other systems. I concentrate pretty fully on just making Linux the best I can.
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.
Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense.
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.
Programmers are in the enviable position of not only getting to do what they want to, but because the end result is so important they get paid to do it. There are other professions like that, but not that many.
When you say "I wrote a program that crashed Windows," people just stare at you blankly and say "Hey, I got those with the system, for free."
Part of doing Linux was that I had to communicate a lot more instead of just being a geek in front of a computer.
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.
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.
Microsoft isn't evil, they just make really crappy operating systems.
I don't see myself as a visionary at all.
Non-technical questions sometimes don't have an answer at all.
Once you start thinking more about where you want to be than about making the best product, you're screwed.
I try to avoid long-range plans and visions - that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up.
The Linux philosophy is 'Laugh in the face of danger'. Oops. Wrong One. 'Do it yourself'. Yes, that's it.
What commercialism has brought into Linux has been the incentive to make a good distribution that is easy to use and that has all the packaging issues worked out.
I do get my pizzas paid for by Linux indirectly.
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.
A consumer doesn't take anything away: he doesn't actually consume anything. Giving the same thing to a thousand consumers is not really any more expensive than giving it to just one.
I lose sleep if I end up feeling bad about something I've said. Usually that happens when I send something out without having read it over a few times, or when I call somebody names.
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.
Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.
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.
Any program is only as good as it is useful.
I'm a technical manager, but I don't have to take care of people. I only have to worry about technology itself.
I see myself as a technical person who chose a great project and a great way of doing that project.
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 memory management on the PowerPC can be used to frighten small children.
In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.
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.
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 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.
Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.
I don't think I'm unusual in preferring my laptop to be thin and light.
Artists usually don't make all that much money, and they often keep their artistic hobby despite the money rather than due to it.
Helsinki isn't all that bad. It's a very nice city, and it's cold really only in wintertime.
Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.
Turtles are very stable and have been around forever. But they have problems adapting. When humans came along, turtles came under serious threat. Biodiversity is good, and I think it is good in technology as well.
