Software Distribution Quotes

Linux is a superbly polished copy of an antique - shinier than the original, perhaps, but still defined by it.

Early on, when software was developed by computer scientists, just people working with computers, people passed around software because that was how you got computers to do things.

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

The name Firefox is not part of the open source licence, and that's why it's important to us.

I think that Microsoft will increasingly feel margin pressure from Linux as well as people saying: well actually the applications that really matter to me are not on my PC. And so they're going to be able to extract less of a monopoly rent, so to speak.

The GNU GPL was not designed to be "open source".

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.

At the end of April I archived 'Curses' and Inform, and announced them on the newsgroups.

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

It doesn't cost anything to replicate code. So the companies that make code, that's why they've done so well. We take it for granted now, but why is it that code is free? It's because somebody built this self-replicating process.

Microsoft has built a closed platform-within-a-platform into Windows 10 as the first apparent step towards locking down the consumer PC ecosystem and monopolising app distribution and commerce.

Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer, I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.

We can build a better product than Linux.

Shareware tends to combine the worst of commercial software with the worst of free software.

Once GNU is written, everyone will be able to obtain good system software free, just like air.

Microsoft has a monopoly over the desktop operating systems.

I changed the Linux copyright license to be the GPL some time in the first half of 1992. Mostly because I had hated the lack of a cheaply and easily available UNIX when I had looked for one a year before.

I believe Microsoft has every right to operate a PC app store and to curate it how they choose.

Epic has prided itself on providing software directly to customers ever since I started mailing floppy disks in 1991.

We can provide beta software to our developers in advance of the general public. We can easily link up with external partners, customers, and suppliers.

I really think the app store is kind of the killer app for Apple and for Google.

Proprietary software grew up, starting really in the 1980s, as an alternative and that became the dominant model with the rise of companies like Microsoft and Oracle and the like.

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.

I consider that the Golden Rule requires that if I like a program I must share it with other people who like it. Software sellers want to divide the users and conquer them, making each user agree not to share with others. I refuse to break solidarity with other users in this way.