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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.”

#281

Post by BonesJustice »

kakarot wrote: post #218

So somebody isn't telling the truth here. Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons. Sorry for having to point that out. As it is, the patches are COMPLETE AND UTTER GARBAGE. They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense. That makes all your arguments questionable and suspicious. The patches do things that are not sane. Is Linus suggesting these patches are so bad that there co…

Doubtful. Possibly a fix for an as-yet-undisclosed variant of the known attacks. Possibly mere ineptitude.

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

#282

Post by subway »

joelthelion wrote: post #269
Cthulhu_ wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A silver bullet is having one smart guy at the top who doesn't care how much pressure you exert on getting something into the codebase, or how much man-hours were spent (sunk cost fallacy). I think in a lot of "corporate" projects (not-open source) there's much less of that and the software is designed by commission, with the lead developer(s) quickly no longer having much of an influence on the code itself, being dr…

> A silver bullet is having one smart guy at the top who doesn't care how much pressure you exert on getting something into the codebase, Well if Linus goes too far, Google and a couple other big corporate contributors could team up and fork Linux, and it would be very hard for the open project to compete. I think the fact that Linus is so good is a big part of what makes the whole thing hold together.

They could, and they often do (Android and ChromeOS effectively run forked kernels). At the end of the day though, they always wanna rebase against that sweet sweet mainline quality.

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

#283

Post by jacques_chester »

mtanski wrote: post #261
mcv wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

On another forum somebody suggested laywer / legal reasons. That if default performance takes too big of a dive the case for lawsuits is stronger. They already have a class action filed against them. A benchmark performance dive would be one angle to use in court.

Coming to a court with "unclean hands" won't help their case either. And showing bad faith can really crank up the damages awarded if it's a jury trial.

(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

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

#284

Post by Ygg2 »

pessimizer wrote: post #272
jimktrains2 wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pc culture? What are you talking about? Linus is pc (in that he doesn't go on misogynistic, racist, or similar rants and doesn't denigrate people for their non-technical decisions) , he's just not nice to those that should know better. While I think you've also been bitten by the "we accept everyone! (who thinks the way we do)" crowd as well, this is not the place or the way to express that frustration.

Some people think that directness and honesty is identical to saying racist, sexist, and homophobic things. So "PC" becomes equivalent to "lying to make people like you."

The argument goes like this, the acerbic culture that grows around Linus is toxic towards female and (sexual/ethnic) minorities, because such contributor are disinclined to join projects where the lead can get verbally abusive.

From what I've gathered the findings are based on real data.

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

#285

Post by dschuetz »

icelancer wrote: post #239
dschuetz wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

"You're a moron, because of this and that issue" isn't as personal as "you're a moron, because you were born stupid, and your family is stupid too" See the distinction? It's up to the person to take it personal or not to.

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

#286

Post by Ygg2 »

TuringTest wrote: post #277
icelancer wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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.

Has anyone suggested him to port the kernel to Rust yet? :-P

No, but mostly, because Redox already exists :-P

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

#287

Post by JohnStrange »

alerighi wrote: post #225
nolok wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big simplification: Proper way to fix an hardware bug like this, is that newer cpu gets protected by default, and they answer they are when queried. So you can ask the CPU "what's your status on bug X" and the cpu answers "i'm good, you don't need to do anything" (newer fixed chips), or "i know about it but was already built, and need microcode update/special behavior to protect myself" (current chips with microcode…

The problem is that every fix that you could think for Spectre reduces the performance of the CPU. So not enabling this by default it's a good choice, Spectre is very difficult to exploit: so if you do critical things you enable the fix, if you use the computer for gaming, video rendering, and things where you don't care too much about security but you care about performance, you don't enable it.

Insecure defaults are always bad. The other way round would be the right choice. Let users downgrade their security for performance, if they insist.

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

#288

Post by crdoconnor »

pdpi wrote: post #271
bassman9000 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should treasure it while it lasts, before PC culture silences him. And before downvoting, recall how many threads regarding Linus abusive behavior (sic) we've had.

Can we stop repeating this? Assertiveness and assholery are not one and the same. Linus has both in abundance, and we can decry the one without wanting the other to go away.

Linus "being an asshole" is what drew attention to this issue. His caustic nature is marketing of a sort.

It's clearly putting additional pressure on Intel. How you feel about that depends on how you feel about them furiously trying to sweep everything under the carpet and hoping nobody notices.

Personally I think his humiliation of Intel here is putting necessary pressure on them. If he couched his terms and tried to be "nice" about this they wouldn't feel nearly the same pressure.

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

#289

Post by rebuilder »

jacques_chester wrote: post #283
mtanski wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On another forum somebody suggested laywer / legal reasons. That if default performance takes too big of a dive the case for lawsuits is stronger. They already have a class action filed against them. A benchmark performance dive would be one angle to use in court.

Coming to a court with "unclean hands" won't help their case either. And showing bad faith can really crank up the damages awarded if it's a jury trial. (I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

Would this be bad faith?

Assume no fix is available, at least for existing processors, that doesn't result in reduced performance. What should Intel do?

- Force users to take the performance hit?

- Let users decide whether to take the performance hit in exchange for security?

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

#290

Post by odonnellryan »

icelancer wrote: post #152
ealexhudson wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to call out bullshit doesn't mean having to curse it out. All Linus needs to do is say something like "I don't understand why this is here, and I'm not merging it until I do", rather than "They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense". The latter is not a technical argument, and it doesn't provide accuracy or clarity about next steps. "So somebody isn't telling the truth here. Som…

>> Being able to call out bullshit doesn't mean having to curse it out. Here we go. >> All Linus needs to do is say something like And all you need to do is be that nice and be as brilliant as Linus is. Oh, it's harder to be that smart than it is to be that nice? Maybe consider that for people as highly gifted as Linus, it actually isn't. What you take for granted as normal behavior isn't always normal to others, esp…

Also, what's wrong with cursing? Are our sensibilities really that delicate?
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