Open Source Quotes

• Empowerment of individuals is a key part of what makes open source work, since in the end, innovations tend to come from small groups, not from large, structured efforts.

  Tim O'Reilly

  Keys, Effort, Innovation

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• Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.

  Richard Stallman

  Movement, Development, Social

  Richard Stallman (2002). “Free Software, Free Society: Selected Essays of Richard M. Stallman”, p.43, Lulu.com

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• The power of Open Source is the power of the people. The people rule.

  Philippe Kahn

  People, Source

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• In open source, we feel strongly that to really do something well, you have to get a lot of people involved.

  Linus Torvalds

  People, Source, Feels

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• In real open source, you have the right to control your own destiny.

  Linus Torvalds

  Real, Destiny, Source

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• Open source isn't about saving money, it's about doing more stuff, and getting incremental innovation with the finite budget you have.

  Jim Whitehurst

  Innovation, Saving, Stuff

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• Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane.

  Larry Ellison

  Insane, Would Be, Good Enough

  Transcript: FT interview with Larry Ellison, www.ft.com. April 18, 2006.

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• I think, fundamentally, open source does tend to be more stable software. It's the right way to do things.

  Linus Torvalds

  Thinking, Doe, Way

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• Technology innovation is starting to explode and having open-source material out there really helps this explosion. You get students and researchers involved and you get people coming through and building start ups based on open source products.

  Tim Berners-Lee

  Technology, People, Innovation

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• There are many examples of companies and countries that have improved their competitiveness and efficiency by adopting open source strategies. The creation of skills through all levels is of fundamental importance to both companies and countries.

  Mark Shuttleworth

  Country, Skills, Example

  "Go Open Source Puts R3m Into Building Linux Channel". tectonic.co.za. January 30, 2006.

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• Certainly there's a phenomenon around open source. You know free software will be a vibrant area. There will be a lot of neat things that get done there.

  Bill Gates

  Done, Source, Neat

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• If an open source product gets good enough, we'll simply take it. So the great thing about open source is nobody owns it - a company like Oracle is free to take it for nothing, include it in our products and charge for support, and that's what we'll do. So it is not disruptive at all - you have to find places to add value. Once open source gets good enough, competing with it would be insane. We don't have to fight open source, we have to exploit open source.

  Larry Ellison

  Fighting, Support, Insane

  FT Interview with Larry Ellison, www.ft.com. April 18, 2006.

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• I think a lot of the basis of the open source movement comes from procrastinating students.

  Andrew Tridgell

  Procrastination, Thinking, Movement

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• 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.

  Linus Torvalds

  Ideas, Today, Incredibles

  "Reclusive Linux founder opens up". Interview with Kristie Lu Stout, edition.cnn.com. May 19, 2006.

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• If you seek to help, join the open source community and fight to keep the spirit of the press alive and the internet free. I have been to the darkest corners of government, and what they fear is light.

  Edward Snowden

  Fighting, Light, Government

  "How I Met Edward Snowden" by Glenn Greenwald, www.huffingtonpost.com. May 13, 2014.

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• Open source is an intellectual-property destroyer, I can't imagine something that could be worse than this for the software business and the intellectual-property business.

  Jim Allchin

  Intellectual, Imagine, Source

  "Microsoft exec calls open source a threat to innovation". www.cnet.com. February 7, 2002.

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• A lot of people who work on open-source software don't mind making money elsewhere. They aren't anticommercial.

  Jimmy Wales

  People, Mind, Making Money

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• Free open-source software, by its nature, is unlikely to feature secret back doors that lead directly to Langley, Va.

  Evgeny Morozov

  Doors, Secret, Unlikely

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• Open-source code is extremely well-adapted to service-oriented architecture.

  Winston Damarillo

  Architecture, Source, Wells

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• Let me be clear - Microsoft has no beef with open source.

  Craig Mundie

  Beef, Microsoft, Source

  "A Tip of the Black Hat From MS" by Farhad Manjoo, www.wired.com. July 27, 2001.

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• Today I am one of the senior technical cadre that makes the Internet work, and a core Linux and open-source developer.

  Eric S. Raymond

  Senior, Today, Linux

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• One of the questions I've always hated answering is how do people make money in open source. And I think that Caldera and Red Hat - and there are a number of other Linux companies going public - basically show that yes, you can actually make money in the open-source area.

  Linus Torvalds

  Thinking, Yes You Can, Numbers

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• My own personal dream is that the majority of the web runs on open source software.

  Matt Mullenweg

  Running, Dream, Majority

  "Big Omaha 2010". Conference Interview, May 2010.

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• You can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of "open source," and have everything magically work out.

  Jamie Zawinski

  Dust, Work Out, Magic

  "Resignation and postmortem". www.jwz.org. March 31, 1999.

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• But the most reliable indication of the future of Open Source is its past: in just a few years, we have gone from nothing to a robust body of software that solves many different problems and is reaching the million-user count. There's no reason for us to slow down now.

  Bruce Perens

  Past, Years, Body

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