15 Inspiring Steve Jobs Quotes for FOSS Developers to Ponder

Steve Jobs, Apple's co-founder and CEO, is the genius behind some of the most innovative and influential tech products in history. His great accomplishments truly speak volumes about his character.

It's a known fact that Free and Open Source software developers are inspired by the words of Stallman and Torvalds, but I think it won't hurt if they will also reflect on some of these great quotes by Steve Jobs:

* "Sometimes when you innovate, you make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and get on with improving your other innovations."

* "Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn't matter to me ... Going to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful... that's what matters to me."

* "We've gone through the operating system and looked at everything and asked how can we simplify this and make it more powerful at the same time."

* "Be a yardstick of quality. Some people aren't used to an environment where excellence is expected."

* "Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works."

* "We're gambling on our vision, and we would rather do that than make "me too" products. Let some other companies do that. For us, it's always the next dream."

* "It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them - not something they'd want now."

* "Real artists ship."

* "It comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much."

* "We are very careful about what features we add because we can't take them away."

* "Look at the design of a lot of consumer products - they're really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can often times arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart, and want objects which are well thought through."

* "It's really hard to design products by focus groups. A lot of times, people don't know what they want until you show it to them."

* "You know, we don't grow most of the food we eat. We wear clothes other people make. We speak a language that other people developed. We use a mathematics that other people evolved... I mean, we're constantly taking things. It's a wonderful, ecstatic feeling to create something that puts it back in the pool of human experience and knowledge."

* "Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have. When Apple came up with the Mac, IBM was spending at least 100 times more on R&D. It's not about money. It's about the people you have, how you're led, and how much you get it."

* "It's rare that you see an artist in his 30s or 40s able to really contribute something amazing."

If you know of other inspiring quotes by Steve Jobs, please share it with us via comment.