I try to avoid long-range plans and visions - that way I can more easily deal with anything new that comes up without having pre-conceptions of how I should deal with it. My only long-range plan has been and still is just the very general plan of making Linux better.

Those that can, do. Those that can't, complain.

No problem is too big it can't be run away from

This 'users are idiots, and are confused by functionality' mentality of Gnome is a disease. If you think your users are idiots, only idiots will use it.

With software, you really can replicate and do a lot of very real and active development in parallel, and actually try it out and see what works.

I'd like to point out that I don't think that there is anything fundamentally superior in the GPL as compared to the BSD license, for example. But the GPL is what I want to program with, because unlike the BSD license it guarantees that anybody who works on the project in the future will also contribute their changes back to the community.

I seldom get self-righteous, and even when I am being impolite (almost always on purpose - there's an art to insulting people, too), I tend to try to not be too serious about it. And most of the time it means that I can take criticism constructively, and sometimes just change my opinion on the fly and laugh at myself over having turned on a dime.