"Me, I just don't care about proprietary software. It's not "evil" or "immoral," it just doesn't matter. I think that Open Source can do better, and I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is by working on Open Source, but it's not a crusade – it's just a superior way of working together and generating code."

"It's one of those rare "perfect" kernels. So if it doesn't happen to compile with your config (or it does compile, but then does unspeakable acts of perversion with your pet dachshund), you can rest easy knowing that it's all your own damn fault, and you should just fix your evil ways."

"Friends don't let friends use [gcc] "-W"."

"Gcc is crap."

"I'm a huge believer in evolution (not in the sense that "it happened" – anybody who doesn't believe that is either uninformed or crazy, but in the sense "the processes of evolution are really fundamental, and should probably be at least thought about in pretty much any context")."

"… even if the Hurd didn't depend on Linux code (and as far as I know, it does, but since I think they have their design heads firmly up their *sses anyway with that whole microkernel thing, I've never felt it was worth my time even looking at their code), I don't believe a religiously motivated development community can ever generate as good code except by pure chance."

"I think people can generally trust me, but they can trust me exactly because they know they don't have to."

"EFI is this other Intel brain-damage (the first one being ACPI)."

"…git actually has a simple design, with stable and reasonably well-documented data structures. In fact, I'm a huge proponent of designing your code around the data, rather than the other way around, and I think it's one of the reasons git has been fairly successful […] I will, in fact, claim that the difference between a bad programmer and a good one is whether he considers his code or his data structures more important. Bad programmers worry about the code. Good programmers worry about data structures and their relationships."

"I like colorized diffs, but let's face it, those particular color choices will make most people decide to pick out their eyes with a fondue fork."

"I claim that Mach people (and apparently FreeBSD) are incompetent idiots."

"For example, the GPLv2 in no way limits your use of the software. If you're a mad scientist, you can use GPLv2'd software for your evil plans to take over the world ("Sharks with lasers on their heads!!"), and the GPLv2 just says that you have to give source code back. And that's OK by me. I like sharks with lasers. I just want the mad scientists of the world to pay me back in kind. I made source code available to them, they have to make their changes to it available to me. After that, they can fry me with their shark-mounted lasers all they want."

"Now, most of you are probably going to be totally bored out of your minds on Christmas day, and here's the perfect distraction. Test 2.6.15-rc7. All the stores will be closed, and there's really nothing better to do in between meals."

"I personally just encourage people to switch to KDE."

"The fact that ACPI was designed by a group of monkeys high on LSD, and is some of the worst designs in the industry obviously makes running it at any point pretty damn ugly."

"I'm always right. This time I'm just even more right than usual."

"I chose 1000 originally partly as a way to make sure that people that assumed HZ was 100 would get a swift kick in the pants."

"Which mindset is right? Mine, of course. People who disagree with me are by definition crazy. (Until I change my mind, when they can suddenly become upstanding citizens. I'm flexible, and not black-and-white.)"

"Don't bother. Bram doesn't know what he's talking about."

"It was such a relief to program in user mode for a change. Not having to care about the small stuff is wonderful."

"2.6.: still a stable kernel, but accept bigger changes leading up to it (timeframe: a month or two)."

"A lot of people still like Solaris, but I'm in active competition with them, and so I hope they die."

"The NIH syndrome (Not Invented Here) is a disease."

"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested. 99% of that I run tends to be open source, but that's my choice, dammit."

"Nobody should start to undertake a large project. You start with a small trivial project, and you should never expect it to get large. If you do, you'll just overdesign and generally think it is more important than it likely is at that stage. Or worse, you might be scared away by the sheer size of the work you envision. So start small, and think about the details. Don't think about some big picture and fancy design. If it doesn't solve some fairly immediate need, it's almost certainly over-designed. And don't expect people to jump in and help you. That's not how these things work. You need to get something half-way useful first, and then others will say "hey, that almost works for me", and they'll get involved in the project."

"There are literally several levels of SCO being wrong. And even if we were to live in that alternate universe where SCO would be right, they'd still be wrong."

"Modern PCs are horrible. ACPI is a complete design disaster in every way. But we're kind of stuck with it. If any Intel people are listening to this and you had anything to do with ACPI, shoot yourself now, before you reproduce."

"Really, I'm not out to destroy Microsoft. That will just be a completely unintentional side effect."

"Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain."

"They are smoking crack."

"I allege that SCO is full of it."

"Hey, that's not a bug, that's a FEATURE! You know what the most complex piece of engineering known to man in the whole solar system is? Guess what – it's not Linux, it's not Solaris, and it's not your car. It's you. And me. And think about how you and me actually came about – not through any complex design. Right. "Sheer luck". Well, sheer luck, AND:"

"In short: just say NO TO DRUGS, and maybe you won't end up like the Hurd people."

"Yeah. And as Linus once said: most numerical problems today in pure CPU cycles are actually 3D games. … It's not "incorrect" to say that you want the result faster, even if that result doesn't match your theoretical models."

"To kind of explain what Linux is, you have to explain what an operating system is. And the thing about an operating system is that you're never ever supposed to see it. Because nobody really uses an operating system; people use programs on their computer. And the only mission in life of an operating system is to help those programs run. So an operating system never does anything on its own; it's only waiting for the programs to ask for certain resources, or ask for a certain file on the disk, or ask to connect to the outside world. And then the operating system steps in and tries to make it easy for people to write programs."

"Once you realize that documentation should be laughed at, peed upon, put on fire, and just ridiculed in general, THEN, and only then, have you reached the level where you can safely read it and try to use it to actually implement a driver."

"I'm a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise. Yet they do. People think I'm a nice guy, and the fact is that I'm a scheming, conniving bastard who doesn't care for any hurt feelings or lost hours of work, if it just results in what I consider to be a better system. And I'm not just saying that. I'm really not a very nice person. I can say "I don't care" with a straight face, and really mean it."

"Talk is cheap. Show me the code."

"Note that nobody reads every post in linux-kernel. In fact, nobody who expects to have time left over to actually do any real kernel work will read even half. Except Alan Cox, but he's actually not human, but about a thousand gnomes working in under-ground caves in Swansea. None of the individual gnomes read all the postings either, they just work together really well."

"I'd like to say that I knew this would happen, that it's all part of the plan for world domination."

"I was thrown out of fourth grade because I couldn't write my own name, and it's been all downhill from there."

"If Microsoft ever does applications for Linux it means I've won."

"My name is Linus Torvalds and I am your god."

""Regression testing"? What's that? If it compiles, it is good; if it boots up, it is perfect."

"(In answer to the question: In the extreme case, if it was just you doing all the code, and the rest of the world quietly used it, would it make sense to give it away free? Unless you're particularly grateful for other free things you've got off the Net, would the answer be No?":)"

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

"The main reason there are no raw devices [in Linux] is that I personally think that raw devices are a stupid idea."

"…the Linux philosophy is "laugh in the face of danger". Oops. Wrong one. "Do it yourself". That's it."

"If you still don't like it, that's OK: that's why I'm boss. I simply know better than you do."

"Only wimps use tape backup: real men just upload their important stuff on ftp, and let the rest of the world mirror it ;)"