Original artwork, not a still
Talk is cheap. Show me the code.
Behind the line
What it means
Our interpretation.
Opinions are free, so the line demands a working patch. It is the creed of open-source projects: ideas are welcome, but the code is what counts. The sentence turns up in code-review comments, on conference slides and on mugs, and it works both as a rebuke to noisy debate and as an invitation to anyone willing to build something.
Context reviewed
In context
May contain spoilersShow the scene
Linus Torvalds posted this on the Linux kernel mailing list on 25 August 2000. It is a one-line challenge to people arguing about how something ought to be done: whoever writes the working code gets to be heard. The remark reflects the kernel list's long culture in which patches, not opinions, carry weight. It has been quoted ever since as Torvalds's shortest statement of how open-source development works.
Sources (1)
- Wikiquote: Linus TorvaldsQuotes, entry citing lkml.org message of 2000-08-25Reference checked
Context reviewed
