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Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

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Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#231

Post by icelancer »

Fnoord wrote: post #193
icelancer wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't, for so many more reasons beyond the PR nightmare. Linus yelling at a former rep of Intel isn't enough to cause them to do something that stupid.

The hypothesis of this happening reminds me of "OpenBSD loses funding due to anti-war statements" (2003) [1] [1] http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/21/1050777197498.h...

The difference being Intel/Linus and a government and TdR, who is quite a bit more acerbic than Linus... and the government less tolerant of comments as such.

Still, a good find. Also, Unices! Not a word I've heard before.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#232

Post by ryanlol »

vanderZwan wrote: post #215
ryanlol wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there any people who care about what the “technology media” says?

If these media weren't popular or read, there wouldn't be so many magazines still being sold, or tech websites that apparently make enough money to keep going. The average person is insecure about more advanced details of tech topics, yet still needs to use laptops and smartphones to survive in modern society. That is the vast majority of people , and those are the people you should be the most worried about, because…

>And honestly, with that in mind your remark looks like a thinly-veiled snobbish remark about how you don't fall for any of that.

I'm just dismissing the consumer market as mostly irrelevant in this context, not trying to make any snobbish remarks. We aren't discussing phones or laptops.

Call me crazy, but I would imagine that big Intel customers do not base their purchasing decisions on what Ars Technica, LinusTechTips or Tweakers.net have to say.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#233

Post by HelloNurse »

mcv wrote: post #160
azernik wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's quite clear about his theory as to Intel's motives: > The whole IBRS_ALL feature to me very clearly says "Intel is not serious about this, we'll have a ugly hack that will be so expensive that we don't want to enable it by default, because that would look bad in benchmarks". > So instead they try to push the garbage down to us. And they are doing it entirely wrong, even from a technical standpoint."

That bit sounds to me like Intel is trying to pull a "Volkswagen": have it perform better in benchmarks than in real life (when hopefully secure execution will be enabled).

More generally, an opt-in switch to disable unsafe behaviour expresses a clear intent to preserve the unsafe behaviour for the foreseeable future.

Disabling unsafe behaviour for good on current chips and removing it from future ones would be equally easy, and clearly it isn't Intel's intent.

Plausible reasons, apart from looking good in benchmarks, include ease of access for their three-letter friends and not bothering with the cost of designing safe and high performance processors.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#234

Post by piyush_soni »

icelancer wrote: post #229
piyush_soni wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus' cursing works because he's Linus, not because he is cursing. There is really no evidence that if he uses strong but less abusive language the work won't get done.

>> There is really no evidence that if he uses strong but less abusive language the work won't get done. That is because there is no other copy of Linus. There's plenty of other lesser software developers who can't do a tenth of what Linus did in his life.

And that somehow entitles him to insult everyone he wants to, so frequently?

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#235

Post by pmlnr »

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #100
teekert wrote: post #28

Why doesn't Intel just go to Linus and ask politely: "Ok, we f-ed up, here is a million dollars (or whatever, 10x his normal salary or something) can you please work with us tightly for some time? Thank you." I would really respect Intel if they would.

Why don't they just work on a proper fix instead? I'm sure Linus would be glad to integrate a proper solution, but it's clear that his opinion is that Intel is instead bringing 'garbage' to the table.

Because there is no proper fix. The only fix comes with massive slowdown.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#236

Post by piyush_soni »

icelancer wrote: post #228
piyush_soni wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

BULLSHIT (I hear you like it). It's about basic etiquette, and treating humans as humans. No amount of gifted skill is a threshold for crossing that behavior barrier.

>>No amount of gifted skill is a threshold for crossing that behavior barrier. Sure there is. You would rather have Linus in your life who yells at people than not. Linus being an asshole is something you have to deal with to get access to his intelligence. I suggest you make peace with this understanding, as it applies to far more people than Linus.

Having a Linus who doesn't yell at people will be any day better than having one who abuses others at will. He needs to take anger management classes. We could seriously do with a little less high-headedness in the world.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#237

Post by icelancer »

piyush_soni wrote: post #234
icelancer wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> There is really no evidence that if he uses strong but less abusive language the work won't get done. That is because there is no other copy of Linus. There's plenty of other lesser software developers who can't do a tenth of what Linus did in his life.

And that somehow entitles him to insult everyone he wants to, so frequently?

> so frequently

I am guessing you don't read the Linux mailing list if you think Linus goes off like this regularly. Maybe you're confusing it with the OpenBSD list and Theo.

Linus' comments like this make the news because of the content. If he did this all the time - frequently, as you posit - it wouldn't make the news all that often, as it would be normal. Linus isn't a guy who flies off the handle with regularity.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#238

Post by mpweiher »

mkohlmyr wrote: post #146
mpweiher wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part of the lifecycle where the clueless have taken over: https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-...

That is an excellent bit of writing. Thanks for the link!

Also part basis for Erik Dietrich's Developer Hegemony.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#239

Post by icelancer »

dschuetz wrote: post #199
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus, like Jobs, is a bully. He lives under the sword. The moment he stops being right, everyone will swiftly turn against them. What separates them is that they're almost never wrong. Not when they pull out "this is garbage" card. This is a difficult ability to learn. You need to stay quiet most of the time, then be a complete asshole when it's important. I really hate that aspect of our industry. But that's just h…

I think there needs to be a clear distinction of what a bully is and what they do. Bullies are violent for no reason, for the pleasure of it. Linus is at most verbally harsh for pretty obvious reasons, the main reason being the harsh his language the more important the issue is. His attacks and critique are never on the personal basis, yet people get offended for no apparent reason instead of focusing on the issue. S…

I am a big defender of Linus, but:

>> His attacks and critique are never on the personal basis

This is really not true. Linus takes it way too far from time to time. The person is always in the wrong, but Linus goes well beyond what is necessary.

Again, I get it and I don't mind. But he makes it personal occasionally.

Re: Linus Torvalds: “Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons.”

#240

Post by icelancer »

pm wrote: post #205
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus, like Jobs, is a bully. He lives under the sword. The moment he stops being right, everyone will swiftly turn against them. What separates them is that they're almost never wrong. Not when they pull out "this is garbage" card. This is a difficult ability to learn. You need to stay quiet most of the time, then be a complete asshole when it's important. I really hate that aspect of our industry. But that's just h…

Jobs was a bully who got the big picture right, but often got the details wrong; folklore.org has plenty of stories about people going round Jobs to get shit done. Linus is abrasive, but he usually has a good explanation for why the target of his ire is a moron, e.g. everytime some coder without Linus’ experience suggests converting the kernel codebase to C++. Let’s be honest, most developers are average at best, and…

>> C++

This is the only way you can get Linus to really lose his shit. I'm surprised his comments in this Intel thing approach the level of anger he has for C++. It's my barometer for how important something is to him.

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