JAMIE ZAWINSKI

Mostly I use the O2 as an X terminal, however, running my apps on Linux and displaying remotely.

Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer.

You can always affect things - so can you change it in a way that will make you as happy with it in the future as you were in the past? Maybe it won't be the same, but it might be something else you also like.

And when the time comes to replace the O2 I have today, maybe my next machine will run Linux.

Nothing stands still. The real question is can you change it?

Linux is only free if your time has no value.

On the other hand, there would be some value in different folks getting together to share expertise and technology; but to the listener, it wouldn't necessarily seem like a single station in the traditional sense.

See, unlike most hackers, I get little joy out of figuring out how to install the latest toy.

I don't get much sense of reward from having discovered how to get the Foo card to coexist with the Bar card.

I use a really simple calendar program on my computer.

Of course, all of the software I write runs on Linux; that's the beauty of standards, and of cross-platform code. I don't have to run your OS, and you don't have to run mine, and we can use the same applications anyway!

Because, you see, what I want to do is to commoditize the OS. I want to have access to all the applications that I need to do the things that I need to do, regardless.

My one purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others.

I think Linux is a great thing, because Linux is an alternative to Windows, and because, of all the operating systems that are at all relevant today, Unix is the best of a bad lot.

If you give a hacker a new toy, the first thing he'll do is take it apart to figure out how it works.

I eat and drink at my desk, but I'm a tidy eater.

Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes.

Why should someone have to retrain themselves to use a new application that does the same basic thing as the old application, just because something as trivial as the operating system changed out from under them?

I think Linux is a great thing, in the big picture. It's a great hacker's tool, and it has a lot of potential to become something more.

Today, I use Linux as my primary OS (on an x86 PC, and on a Thinkpad), and I also use Irix (on an SGI O2). Linux has improved a great deal since I wrote this, specifically with respect to its ease of installation.

I find that getting something on the screen as soon as possible really helps focus the problem for me. It helps me decide what to work on next. Because if you're just looking at that big to-do list it's like, eh, I don't know which one I should do—does it matter which one I do? But if there's something you can actually look at, even if it's just the debug output of your mailbox parser, it's like, OK, there!

The universe tends toward maximum irony. Don't push it.

C has all the expressive power of two dixie cups and a string.

If you give a cracker a new toy, the first thing he'll do is carve his initials in it. Fortunately, most crackers get over that once they're through puberty.

There is a lot of money to be made in the business of secrets, of course.