Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.
Linus TorvaldsRead
Any program is only as good as it is useful.
Interpretation
The effectiveness of a program is determined by its practicality and utility to users.
This quote by Linus Torvalds emphasizes that the true value of any program lies in its usefulness to the end users. It suggests that regardless of how complex or sophisticated a program is, it is ultimately judged by how well it serves its purpose and meets the needs of those who use it.
In practice
In a tech conference, a speaker might use this quote to emphasize the importance of user-centered design.
Software patents, in particular, are very ripe for abuse. The whole system encourages big corporations getting thousands and thousands of patents. Individuals almost never get them.
I often compare open source to science. To where science took this whole notion of developing ideas in the open and improving on other peoples' ideas and making it into what science is today and the incredible advances that we have had. And I compare that to witchcraft and alchemy, where openness was something you didn't do.
I'm sitting in my home office wearing a bathrobe. The same way I'm not going to start wearing ties, I'm also not going to buy into the fake politeness, the lying, the office politics and backstabbing, the passive aggressiveness, and the buzzwords.
Avoiding complexity reduces bugs.
Most of the good programmers do programming not because they expect to get paid or get adulation by the public, but because it is fun to program.
I have an ego the size of a small planet.
In the face of technology, everything becomes a little atavistic.
The merger of globalization and the I.T. revolution means new products are being phased in and out so fast that companies cannot afford to wait until the end of the year to figure out whether a team leader is doing a good job.
I think that technologies are morally neutral until we apply them. It's only when we use them for good or for evil that they become good or evil.
If you just hold your cell phone for 30 seconds and think backwards through its production, you have the entire techno-industrial culture wrapped up there. You can't have that device without everything that goes with it.
Did you know that Kodak actually invented the digital camera that ultimately put it out of business? Kodak had the patents and a head start, but ignored all that.
If you go back back a few hundred years, what we take for granted today would seem like magic - being able to talk to people over long distances, to transmit images, flying, accessing vast amounts of data like an oracle. These are all things that would have been considered magic a few hundred years ago.
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