19 Quotes by Andrew S. Tanenbaum

UNIX does not allow path names to be prefixed by a drive name or number; that would be precisely the kind of device dependence that operating systems ought to eliminate.

While most people can talk rationally about kernel design and portability, the issue of free-ness is 100% emotional.

If anyone had realized that within 10 years this tiny system that was picked up almost by accident was going to be controlling 50 million computers, considerably more thought might have gone into it.

Unfortunately, the current generation of mail programs do not have checkers to see if the sender knows what he is talking about.

A refund for defective software might be nice, except it would bankrupt the entire software industry in the first year.

Writing a portable OS is not much harder than a nonportable one, and all systems should be written with portability in mind these days.

I had never engaged in remote multishrink psychoanalysis on this scale before, so it was a fascinating experience.

But in all honesty, I would suggest that people who want a modern “free” OS look around for a microkernel-based, portable OS, like maybe GNU or something like that.

With current technology it is possible to put four floppy disk drives in a personal computer. It is just that doing so would be pointless.