Jamie Zawinski quotes

My one purpose in life is to serve as a warning to others. (Jamie Zawinski)
Linux is only free if your time has no value. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
You can't take a dying project, sprinkle it with the magic pixie dust of "open source," and have everything magically work out. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Don't do drugs, kids. Stay in school. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
These people also tended to pretend to care deeply about the blind and otherwise disabled. I am sympathetic to the needs of those users, but I can't help but think that those who claimed to speak for the blind were being more than a little disingenuous, just like those Hemp people who present their arguments in terms of their deep and abiding care for the textile industry, when their real motives are ... something else entirely. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Your "use case" should be, there's a 22 year old college student living in the dorms. How will this software get him laid? View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Today, I use Linux as my primary OS (on an x86 PC, and on a Thinkpad), and I also use Irix (on an SGI O2). Linux has improved a great deal since I wrote this, specifically with respect to its ease of installation. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
The real bug here is that the design of the system even permits this class of bug. It is unconscionable that someone designing a critical piece of security infrastructure would design the system in such a way that it does not fail safe. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
[Perl] combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with the readability of PostScript. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Your needs are big because the Internet is big. (Jamie Zawinski)
There is a lot of money to be made in the business of secrets, of course. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Our focus in the client group had always been to build products and features that people wanted to use. That we wanted to use. That our moms wanted to use. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
If you want to do something that's going to change the world, build software that people want to use instead of software that managers want to buy. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Using these toolkits is like trying to make a bookshelf out of mashed potatoes. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Some people, when confronted with a problem, think "I know, I'll use regular expressions." Now they have two problems. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
I'd just like to take this moment to point out that C has all the expressive power of two dixie cups and a string. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Professionalism has no place in art, and hacking is art. Software Engineering might be science; but that's not what I do. I'm a hacker, not an engineer. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
If you give a hacker a new toy, the first thing he'll do is take it apart to figure out how it works. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Nothing stands still. The real question is can you change it? View quote
Jamie Zawinski
I've noticed that when I get quoted in . sig files, it's never any of the actual clever things I say all the time. Usually it's something dumb. (Jamie Zawinski)
Nothing comes for free. View quote
Jamie Zawinski
C (it's not just a language, it's a grade) View quote
Jamie Zawinski
Browser compatibility problems are nature's way of saying "stop trying to be so fuckin' clever." View quote
Jamie Zawinski
I dug in a bit but then the smell of gasoline and burning flesh drove me away. View quote
Jamie Zawinski