Q&A: Torvalds on Linux, Microsoft, software’s future
CW: Lots of researchers made millions with new computer technologies, but you preferred to keep developing Linux. Don’t you feel you missed the chance of a lifetime by not creating a proprietary Linux?
Torvalds: No, really. First off, I’m actually perfectly well off. I live in a good-sized house, with a nice yard, with deer occasionally showing up and eating the roses (my wife likes the roses more, I like the deer more, so we don’t really mind). I’ve got three kids, and I know I can pay for their education. What more do I need? . . . So instead, I have a very good life, doing something that I think is really interesting, and something that I think actually matters for people, not just me. And that makes me feel good.
One of the reasons I like Linus is because he is all about the balance. Balance between performance and function. Balance between old and new. Balance between open and proprietary software. Balance between his family and his work. It is this drive for balance that continues to keep the Linux kernel on track, perhaps even the whole Linux movement, such as it is.
If anyone deserves to be proclaimed a Benevolent Dictator for Life over any project, it is a guy like Linus.
So excellent.
He doesn’t seem like a dick at all in that context ;)