I like to think that I've been a good manager. That fact has been very instrumental in making Linux a successful product.

It's a personality trait: from the very beginning, I knew what I was concentrating on. I'm only doing the kernel - I always found everything around it to be completely boring.

In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.

Developers have the attention spans of slightly moronic woodland creatures.

One of the questions I've always hated answering is how do people make money in open source. And I think that Caldera and Red Hat - and there are a number of other Linux companies going public - basically show that yes, you can actually make money in the open-source area.

I'd argue that everybody wants to do something that matters, and the fact that Linux has had a huge impact on the tech market and is used virtually everywhere is obviously very personally satisfying. I think programming is fun, and the community around the kernel is great, but a project has to be relevant too.

I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease.