Neal Stephenson Quotes

Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.

There is no system but GNU and Linux is one of it's kernels

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.

GNU, which stands for Gnu's Not Unix, is the name for the complete Unix-compatible software system which I am writing so that I can give it away free to everyone who can use it.

The True-GNU philosophy is more extreme than I care for, but it certainly laid a foundation for the current scene, as well as providing real software.

I'm interested in Linux because of the technology, and Linux wasn't started as any kind of rebellion against the 'evil Microsoft empire.'

Ubuntu is doing amazing things, and I think it's going to change the face of the desktop.

Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches.

Linux has never been about quality. There are so many parts of the system that are just these cheap little hacks, and it happens to run.

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.

When I launched the development of the GNU system, I explicitly said the purpose of developing this system is so we can use our computers and have freedom, thus if you use some other free system instead but you have freedom, then it's a success. It's not popularity for our code but it's success for our goal.

In the free/libre software movement, we develop software that respects users' freedom, so we and you can escape from software that doesn't.

All the best people in life seem to like LINUX.

Microsoft loves Linux.

I never imagined that the Free Software Movement would spawn a watered-down alternative, the Open Source Movement, which would become so well-known that people would ask me questions about "open source" thinking that I work under that banner.

Me trying to make a business around Linux would have been a total disaster.

Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.

I made very sure that I did not get involved with any of the commercial Linux companies, exactly so that I would be neutral and not ever seen as "working for the competition".

On a purely technical side, I'm really very happy with how Linux gets used in a very wide set of different areas. It's important for development.

The crucial legacy of the personal computer is that anyone can write code for it and give or sell that code to you - and the vendors of the PC and its operating system have no more to say about it than your phone company does about which answering machine you decide to buy.

Open source production has shown us that world-class software, like Linux and Mozilla, can be created with neither the bureaucratic structure of the firm nor the incentives of the marketplace as we've known them.

Linux has definitely made a lot of sense even in a purely materialistic sense.

I started working on OpenBSD, and many earlier projects, because I have always felt that vendor systems were not designed for quality.

When I first got into technology I didn't really understand what open source was. Once I started writing software, I realized how important this would be.

Certainly there's a phenomenon around open source. You know free software will be a vibrant area. There will be a lot of neat things that get done there.