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.
At our computer club, we talked about it being a revolution. Computers were going to belong to everyone, and give us power, and free us from the people who owned computers and all that stuff.
We went to Ladakh ... and we asked this woman, 'What was the benefit you had from solar electricity?' And she thought for a minute and said, 'It's the first time I can see my husband's face in winter.'
You can be good at technology and like fashion and art. You can be good at technology and be a jock. You can be good at technology and be a mom. You can do it your way, on your terms.
Increasingly, our decisions will be made by the algorithms that surround us. Whenever there is a big dilemma, you just ask Google what to do. And what kind of life is that?
The hope is that, in not too many years, human brains and computing machines will be coupled together very tightly, and that the resulting partnership will think as no human brain has ever thought and process data in a way not approached by the information-handling machines we know today.
I mean, you can't have advertising be the only official business of the information economy if the information economy is going to take over.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.