12 Linus Torvalds Quotes on Software

Linus Torvalds quotes on software

10. An infinite number of monkeys typing into GNU emacs would never make a good program.

16. Portability is for people who cannot write new programs.

17. 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*'.

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

31. 'Regression testing'? What's that? If it compiles, it is good, if it boots up it is perfect.

33. Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's _my_ choice, dammit.

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

45. For example, the GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ('Sharks with lasers on their heads!!'), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me back in kind. I made source code available to them, they have to make their changes to it available to me. After that, they can fry me with their shark-mounted lasers all they want.

59. 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.

66. 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.

67. Software is like sex; it's better when it's free.

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