Jamie Zawinski Quotes

I've never regretted not making Linux shareware: I really don't like the pay for use binary shareware programs.

It is the fate of operating systems to become free.

A lot of that momentum comes from the fact that Linux is free.

When it comes to software, I much prefer free software, because I have very seldom seen a program that has worked well enough for my needs, and having sources available can be a life-saver.

Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft.

I think operating systems work best if they're free and open. Particular applications are more likely to be proprietary.

Making things open-source brings the cost down.

Success for open source is when the term 'open source' becomes a non-factor in the decision making process, when people hear about Linux and compare it to Windows NT, and they compare it on the feature set and don't have much of an excuse not to use it.

Software is like sex: it's better when it's free.

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

The idea of free software is that users of computing deserve freedom. They deserve in particular to have control over their computing. And proprietary software does not allow users to have control of their computing.

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

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

Arrangements to make people pay for using a program, including licensing of copies, always incur a tremendous cost to society through the cumbersome mechanisms necessary to figure out how much (that is, which programs) a person must pay for. And only a police state can force everyone to obey them. Consider a space station where air must be manufactured at great cost: charging each breather per liter of air may be fair, but wearing the metered gas mask all day and all night is intolerable even if everyone can afford to pay the air bill. And the TV cameras everywhere to see if you ever take the mask off are outrageous. It's better to support the air plant with a head tax and chuck the masks. Copying all or parts of a program is as natural to a programmer as breathing, and as productive. It ought to be as free.

One of the reasons that I really don't mind that people are selling Linux commercially is exactly because it does make me feel good that people use the product.

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.

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

The only reason [not to use] perl is that some sysadmins don't allow software that they didn't pay for. By all means, let them send me money if it makes them feel better.

Paying isn’t wrong, and being paid isn’t wrong. Trampling other people’s freedom and community is wrong, so the free software movement aims to put an end to it, at least in the area of software.

If in my lifetime the problem of non-free software is solved, I could perhaps relax and write software again. But I might instead try to help deal with the world's larger problems. Standing up to an evil system is exhilarating, and now I have a taste for it.

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

A critical factor in its success was that the X developers were willing to give the sources away for free in accordance with the hacker ethic, and able to distribute them over the Internet.

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.

Proprietary software is an injustice.

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.