Linus Torvalds on Just for Fun

“You see. I don't think any new thoughts. I think thoughts that other people have thought, and I rearrange them. But Sara, she thinks thoughts that never were before.”

“The course was so basic—this was the fall of 1993, before the popularity of the Internet—my homework assignment for the class one day was to send me email. It sounds absurd today, but I said: “For homework, send me email.” Other students’ emails contained simple test messages, or unmemorable notes about the class. Tove asked me out for a date. I married the first woman to approach me electronically.”

“I'm personally convinced that computer science has a lot in common with physics. Both are about how the world works at a rather fundamental level. The difference, of course, is that while in physics you're supposed to figure out how the world is made up, in computer science you create the world. Within the confines of the computer, you're the creator. You get to ultimately control everything that happens. If you're good enough, you can be God. On a small scale.”

“Jobs made a big point of the fact that Mach’s low-level kernel is open source. He sort of played down the flaw in the setup: Who cares if the basic operating system, the real low-core stuff, is open source if you then have the Mac layer on top, which is not open source? He had no way of knowing that my personal opinion of Mach is not very high. Frankly, I think it’s a piece of crap. It contains all the design mistakes you can make, and managed to even make up a few of its own."”