Linus Torvalds Quotes
I'm not worried about the kernel itself or the basic system. All the commercialization is about the distributions and the applications. As such, it only brings value-added things to Linux, and it doesn't take anything away from the Linux scene.
Torvalds, Linus. "The Linux Edge." Open Sources: Voices from the Open Source Revolution, edited by Chris DiBona et al., O'Reilly Media, 1999.
This quotation is an excellent statement of one major viewpoint about patents. However there are others who disagree and many who believe the existing patent system is broken and inhibits innovation. They observe that the vast majority of patents never are developed or reach the public. They also point to major counter-examples to Thomson’s view. The best is the PC which IBM developed and decided NOT to patent it, to encourage people to produce programs, applications and many devices. No product in human history has been more thoroughly developed and adopted by as many people as quickly. More capital investment money has been invested that any other invention. There are many examples where Thompson’s point holds. Vaccines for which there is no patent have not obtained any company who would manufacture it despite the need. The issue is complex with the old view of Thomson certainly not correct, but not entirely wrong either.
The “gap” is different in different fields. Public health has a particularly large gap while laser app;ications have a much smaller one.
Linus Benedict Torvalds is a Finnish-American software engineer who is the creator and, historically, the main developer of the Linux kernel, used by Linux distributions and other operating systems such as Android and Chrome OS. He also created the distributed revision control system Git and the scuba dive logging and planning software Subsurface.
