There were open source projects and free software before Linux was there. Linux in many ways is one of the more visible and one of the bigger technical projects in this area, and it changed how people looked at it because Linux took both the practical and ideological approach.

In many cases the user interface to a program is the most important part for a commercial company: whether the programs works correctly or not seems to be secondary.

That's what makes Linux so good: you put in something, and that effort multiplies. It's a positive feedback cycle.

Part of doing Linux was that I had to communicate a lot more instead of just being a geek in front of a computer.

The big thing about distributed source control is that it makes one of the main issues with SCM's go away - the politics around "who can make changes." BitKeeper showed that you can avoid that by just giving everybody their own source repository.

Software is like sex. It's only good when it's for free.

While I may not get any money from Linux, I get a huge personal satisfaction from having written something that people really enjoy using, and that people find to be the best alternative for their needs.