While we ended up having several core maintainers use BitKeeper - it was free to use for open source projects - it never got ubiquitous. So it helped kernel development, but there were still pain points.

On a purely technical side, I'm really very happy with how Linux gets used in a very wide set of different areas. It's important for development.

I'm basically a very lazy person who likes to get credit for things other people actually do.

I get the biggest enjoyment from the random and unexpected places. Linux on cellphones or refrigerators, just because it's so not what I envisioned it. Or on supercomputers.

I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended.

I actually don't believe that everybody should necessarily try to learn to code. I think it's reasonably specialized, and nobody really expects most people to have to do it. It's not like knowing how to read and write and do basic math.

It was such a relief to program in user mode for a change. Not having to care about the small stuff is wonderful.