Linux

Tux, official penguin mascot of the Linux kernel since 1996

Linux is a free and open-source kernel for Unix-like operating systems. It was first developed in 1991 by Linus Torvalds.

Quotes about Linux

• 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 a angry penguin charging at them in excess of 100mph. They'd be a lot more careful about what they say if they had.
  • Torvalds, Linus (9 June 1996). "Linux v2.0 released". comp.os.linux.announce. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2025-10-13.
• … the Linux philosophy is "laugh in the face of danger". Oops. Wrong one. "Do it yourself". That's it.
  • Torvalds, Linus (16 October 1996). "Re: PLEASE! The person who patched kernel/exit.c for 2.0.1 contact me". linux.dev.kernel. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2025-10-13.

• Linux is only free if your time has no value, and I find that my time is better spent doing things other than the endless moving-target-upgrade dance.
  • Jamie Zawinski, in a 1998 interview with Eliliana Vasquez
  • Zawinski, Jamie (2000). Mouthing off about linux.. Retrieved on 2008-12-21.

• 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.
  • Torvalds, Linus (2 May 2000). "Re: problems with readdir in isofs in recent kernels". fa.linux.kernel. (Google Groups). Retrieved on 2006-08-28.

• We could adopt the even/odd numbering scheme that we used to do on a minor number basis, and instead of dropping it entirely like we did, we could have just moved it to the release number, as an indication of what was the intent of the release. … We'd have an increasing level of instability with an odd release number, depending on how long-term the instability is. … With the odd numbers going like:

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

  2.<odd>.x: aim for big changes that may destabilize the kernel for several releases (timeframe: a year or two)

  <odd>.x.x: Linus went crazy, broke absolutely everything, and rewrote the kernel to be a microkernel using a special message-passing version of Visual Basic. (timeframe: "we expect that he will be released from the mental institution in a decade or two").

  • Torvalds, Linus (2 March 2005). RFD: Kernel release numbering. lkml.org. Retrieved on 2006-12-11.

• Making Linux GPL'd was definitely the best thing I ever did.
  • Linus Torvalds, as quoted in Yamagata, Hiroo (1997). The Pragmatist of Free Software: Linus Torvalds Interview. HotWired Japan. Retrieved on 2006-08-28.
• Linux is not in the public domain. Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches. That's the way that the license works.
  • Steve Ballmer, in a 2001 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times

• One of the reasons that basic research is advanced most by not resorting to intellectual property is that while doing so would have questionable benefits, the costs are apparent. [...] Interestingly, even in software, this system of open collaboration has worked. Today we have the Linux computer operating system, which is also based on the principle of open architecture.
  • Stiglitz, Joseph E. (2006). "Patents, Profits, and People". Making Globalization Work. New York: W. W. Norton & Company. p. 112. ISBN 978-0-393-06122-2. 

• Everything [in Unix] was small … and my heart sinks for Linux when I see the size of it. … The manual page, which really used to be a manual page, is now a small volume, with a thousand options …. We used to sit around in the Unix Room saying, 'What can we throw out? Why is there this option?' It's often because there is some deficiency in the basic design—you didn't really hit the right design point. Instead of adding an option, think about what was forcing you to add that option.
  • Doug McIlroy, in a talk given to the Dartmouth–Lake Sunapee Linux User Group (DLSLUG) on 3 November 2005

• I've looked at the [source code for Linux] occasionally. I don't look at it as much as I used to. I used to, for Plan 9. They were always ahead of us—they just had massively more resources to deal with hardware. So when we'd run across a piece of hardware, I’d look at the Linux drivers for it and write Plan 9 drivers for it. Now I have no reason to look at it. I run Linux.
  • Ken Thompson, in an interview with Peter Seibel for Seibel's book Coders at Work (2009)

• I don't know the counts of Unix and Linux servers. I do know that my heart sinks whenever I look under the hood in Linux. It is has been so overfed by loving hands. Over 240 system calls! Gigabytes of source! A C compiler with a 250-page user manual (not counting the language definition)! A simple page turner, less, has over 40 options and 60 commands! It's proof that open-source can breed monsters just like the commercial pros. Miraculously, though, this monster works.
  • Doug McIlroy, as quoted in Sartain, Julie D. (19 August 2013). In their own words: Unix pioneers remember the good times. NetworkWorld. Retrieved on 2025-09-28.

• Linux is open source and very secure.
  • Tim Cook, in a direct message on Twitter to journalist Jack Morse in 2018. Quoted in Morse, Jack (9 February 2018). Apple thinks you should really chill about that iBoot leak. Mashable. Retrieved on 2023-06-05.

• The Linux community wants to make software, and Microsoft wants to make money.
  • Preston, Andrej (23 August 2019). Is Linux Finally Beating Windows? (Microsoft Windows vs Linux OS Battle) (video). The Infographics Show.

See also

• Category:Linux people
• Berkeley Software Distribution
• FreeBSD
• NetBSD
• Unix

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Linux on Wikipedia
• The dictionary definition of Linux on Wiktionary