Linus Torvalds Quotes

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

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

I got bitten by the free software bug in February of 1998 around the time of the Mozilla announcement.

Many users of the GNU/Linux system will not have heard the ideas of free software. They will not be aware that we have ideas, that a system exists because of ethical ideals, which were omitted from ideas associated with the term 'open source.'

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

In trying to understand the Linux phenomenon, then, we have to look not at a single innovator but to a sort of bizarre Trinity : Linus Torvalds, Richard Stallman, and Bill Gates. Take away any of these three and Linux would not exist.

The accomplishment of open source is that it is the back end of the web, the invisible part, the part that you don't see as a user.

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

People sometimes ask me if it is a sin in the Church of Emacs to use vi. Using a free version of vi is not a sin; it is a penance. So happy hacking.

Making things open-source brings the cost down.

The thing with Linux is that the developers themselves are actually customers too: that has always been an important part of Linux.

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

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.

Free software is software that respects your freedom and the social solidarity of your community. So it's free as in freedom.

See, you not only have to be a good coder to create a system like Linux, you have to be a sneaky bastard too.

All of our code is open source, so it can be used for other projects.

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.

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.

Open source can propagate to fill all the nooks and crannies that people want it to fill.