Precise language to reason precisely

"In the end, programs are just mathematics, and you can reason about them mathematically"
-- Gerwin Klein, NICTA, "Universal kernel code to keep computers safe," NewScientist, 28 August 2009.

Something out of nothing

Write a paper promising salvation, make it a "structured" something or a "virtual" something, or "abstract", "distributed" or "higher-order" or "applicative" and you can almost be certain of having started a new cult.
-- E.W. Dijkstra, "EWD 709: My hopes of computing science," April 1979.

Virtual Tivoization?

"Our virtualization features can also encapsulate components that are under the GPL open-source license protecting valuable company IP from the obligation to publish source code"
-- Steve Subar, CEO and Co-Founder of Open Kernel Lab. "Commercial version of NICTA open source L4 real time kernel released," Embedded.com, 17 April 2007.

The New Republic

"What we have today is government of the people, by the flunkies, for the corporations."
-- Richard Stallman on Trusted Computing (what he called 'Treacherous Computing'), "GPLv3 - Transcript of Richard Stallman from the fifth international GPLv3 conference, Tokyo, Japan"

(Ouch! That hurts! (Parenthetical comment notwithstanding))

(lawyers are whores - they are paid to argue for their client, not for the law)
-- Linus Torvalds in the Linux Kernel Mailing List "Re:GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders".

Holy War Version III

I literally feel that we do not - as software developers - have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God. We are trying to show others that co-operation and openness works better.
-- Linus Torvalds in the Linux Kernel Mailing List (LKML) "Re: GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders".

People is an important part of the equation

"Communication between people is what makes us a society... The World Wide Web is, together, technology and society. It is computers and people."
-- Tim Berners-Lee. "Sir Tim Berners-Lee Gives Congress Vision Of The Future", Embedded.com, Jan 3, 2007

I need a vacation!

...I've always taken big vacations. I get quite intense about what I'm doing and get very involved with work, and then I take my vacations, which have usually been climbing mountains or skiing or doing a lot of exploration.
-- Frances Allen in Frances Allen's Oral History Interview - Transcript. She is the first woman to receive the Turing Award.

Going against the current

"They're using the Steve Jobs method, ... You don't use focus groups. You just do it right."
-- John Maeda, in reference to the design process of XO, the $100 Laptop. "The Face of the $100 Laptop," March 1, 2oo7.