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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.

Linus Torvalds

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Linus Torvalds
Age: 54
Born: 1969
Born: December 28
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Helsingfors
Linus Benedict Torvalds
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More quotes by Linus Torvalds

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Every once in a while an issue comes up where I have to make a statement. I can't totally avoid all political issues, but I try my best to minimize them. When I do make a statement, I try to be fairly neutral.
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Once you start thinking more about where you want to be than about making the best product, you're screwed.
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I seldom get self-righteous, and even when I am being impolite (almost always on purpose - there's an art to insulting people, too), I tend to try to not be too serious about it. And most of the time it means that I can take criticism constructively, and sometimes just change my opinion on the fly and laugh at myself over having turned on a dime.
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Artists usually don't make all that much money, and they often keep their artistic hobby despite the money rather than due to it.
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There are lots of Linux users who don't care how the kernel works but only want to use it is not only a tribute to how good Linux is, but it also brings up issues that I would never have thought of otherwise.
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I never felt that the naming issue was all that important, but I was obviously wrong, judging by how many people felt. I tell people to call it just plain Linux and nothing more.
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The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease.
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Before the commercial ventures, Linux tended to be rather hard to set up, because most of the developers were motivated mainly by their own interests.
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Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.
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I'd much rather have 15 people arguing about something than 15 people splitting into two camps, each side convinced it's right and not talking to the other.
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By staying neutral, I end up being somebody that everybody can trust. Even if they don't always agree with my decisions, they know I'm not working against them.
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Linux has more than satisfied any small initial expectations I had. It's simply incredible how successful Linux has been, and how good a time I've had developing it and leading the project. It does take a lot of my time, but it's time I really enjoy spending, and Linux has continued to be challenging both technically and from a managing standpoint.
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I really never wanted to do source control management at all and felt that it was just about the least interesting thing in the computing world .
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I've been employed by the University of Helsinki, and that has been paying my bills. Obviously a ''real job'' pays better than most universities will pay, but I've been very happy with this arrangement I get to do whatever I want, and I have no commercial pressures whatsoever doing this.
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You won't get sued for anticompetitive behavior.
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I can't say that I like MicroSoft: I think they make rather bad operating systems - Windows NT is just more of the same - but while I dislike their operating systems and abhor their tactics in the marketplace I at the same time don't really care all that much about them.
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It just makes it even harder for people to even approach the (open source) side, when they then end up having to worry about public humiliation.
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Some people have told me they don't think a fat penguin really embodies the grace of Linux, which just tells me they have never seen an angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
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With software, you really can replicate and do a lot of very real and active development in parallel, and actually try it out and see what works.
Linus Torvalds