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

lkml.iu.edu

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

#441

Post by PopsiclePete »

Roritharr wrote: post #25
mrmondo wrote: post #8

I think we should count ourselves lucky we have someone so good at spotting bullsh*t like this - and isn’t afraid to call it out as they sees it. Intel & friends have absolutely disgusted me lately, it could be all to easy to settle for less based on their standards, but let’s not let them set the standard - they’ve shown they can’t be trusted with quality and when they fail - they can’t be trusted to be transparent…

Not only spot, but also invests the energy in calling it out and explaining it. Many business failures i've witnessed happened ultimately because nobody had the energy to cut down the bullshit forest that constantly regrows around a company.

>Many business failures i've witnessed happened ultimately because nobody had the energy to cut down the bullshit forest that constantly regrows around a company.

I've worked at a company that had 20 people and a company that's had 5000 and some ones in between.

Going from 2-3 people to 20 is pretty manageable. Everyone knows each other, work gets done, you can call people out on their bullshit, stuff is fixed, because everyone feels responsible and accountable.

Then you go to 100 people and a few of the original 20 leave and the whole culture changes. 1000's of people? Totally different ball game. Incompetence will slip through, no single person has a full grasp on everything, meetings and more meetings and more managers playing broken telephone all day and you got people in different cities and time zones and countries who've never seen each other face-to-face and it's just a nightmare to manage that.

It can be done, but that's when you really need competent managers, and those are extremely hard to come by.

I'm sure there are teams and divisions within Intel that are extremely competent, people at the top of their game who are looking at this debacle and just shaking their heads just as much as Linus.

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

#442

Post by justaaron »

pdpi wrote: post #425
crdoconnor wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>See it from this angle: if Linus wasn't known for flipping his lid all the time, him flipping out _this_ time would be even more impactful. Overuse makes it progressively less remarkable. I don't. This is pretty much part of his brand. He's developed a reputation for flipping his lid and lambasting people who have always deserved it using entertainingly colorful language. That's why these rants still get to the top…

> Which is the sentence that got this rant on hacker news And yet the title of the submission is "Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons". That's a good suggestion that the moron quote is not "what got this rant on hacker news". Perhaps it's on hacker news not because the form is inflammatory, but because the content is insightful. Maybe—just maybe—the fact that the Linux project lead publicly accus…

spooks keeping their back door open? a la Dual_EC_DRBG and RSA etc...

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

#443

Post by justaaron »

nielsabel wrote: post #203
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.

> before PC culture silences him Damn you, Wintel!

finally someone made the reference :D

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

#444

Post by Waterluvian »

I have a gut feeling that all of this madness is driven by legal and management terror. Doing the right thing likely means, to many people, admitting fault. Legal has likely banned anyone from doing anything that looks like an admission of guilt. Management and PR, etc. are all probably about saving face, too. The people who care about doing the right thing from a technology perspective likely don't have any power.

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

#445

Post by greyfade »

Filligree wrote: post #403
theptip wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> based on real data Citation? Sounds interesting.

That's hardly limited to women. It's the same reason I have no intention of ever contributing to the kernel.

Speaking for myself, this is partly why I want to contribute to the kernel.

I tend not to take my own mistakes very seriously unless they come with serious consequences. Having someone I respect tear into me would, I think, force me to take greater care and apply more attention to my work than I already do.

I've heard similar anecdotes from people who have contributed. I even recall a female contributor say something positive about it.

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

#446

Post by wtetzner »

frevd wrote: post #402
IntelMiner wrote: post #375

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasonable expectation would be that Intel fixes one (or both) of the bugs - In newer CPU's. There should be mitigations against these attacks. That would probably seriously hurt intel by delaying their future processor launches - In Older/existing CPU's through microcode updates. Bar literally making "fixed" versions of every Intel CPU in the last 10~ years. This is the only way to resolve the issue on existing…

It's not Intel's issue, it's a design flaw per se, affecting _all_ CPUs that use predictive branch execution that has effects on the processor cache, which are pretty much all processors produced in this millenium. That said, there _might_ be a solution to this problem in a way that predictive branch execution does not need to be removed completely from future architecture, which would be a thing we don't really want…

> It's not Intel's issue, it's a design flaw per se, affecting _all_ CPUs that use predictive branch execution that has effects on the processor cache, which are pretty much all processors produced in this millenium.

Just because other CPUs have this flaw, doesn't mean this isn't Intel's issue. Regardless of the state of other CPU manufacturers, Intel is producing buggy CPUs.

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

#447

Post by wilun »

kbenson wrote: post #430

And here[1] is Woodhouse's coherent latest reply as of a couple hours ago on the issue, which explains for all us in the peanut gallery (his words, which I think are spot on) exactly what this is about, why it's included, how it actually affects the situation, why it was put forth at all, etc. It appears much less sinister than Linus was insinuating, but Linus has yet to reply. 1: http://lkml.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/k…

That's an interesting summary but I predict that Linus will destroy him for completely avoiding the hard question: why the fuck IBRS_ALL would not be on by default on future "fixed" chips, if on such CPU it would not be somehow crappy. And the risk of it becoming architectural (with that absurd default) is insane too.

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

#448

Post by wtetzner »

cthalupa wrote: post #184
nolok wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

See my second message (next to yours), it's not just that, yes he thinks and clearly says that thissolution is terrible but that's not why he calls them out to be basically liars; this one is because they put useless filler garbage code all around to hide what's happening in their patches. I think we're lucky to have someone as clear, outspoken and refusing such crap in charge of the kernel.

Part of the problem is Linus doesn't actually understand the different portions of what Intel is doing, and is mixing up IBPB and IBRS. They do different things, and he's thinking they're all part of the same thing. This could be a sign that these things are poorly written and need to be refactored into something more obvious, or it could be that they're so fundamentally complex that it's going to be difficult to gra…

> or it could be that they're so fundamentally complex that it's going to be difficult to grasp without context.

If it is that fundamentally complex, then it sounds like they need to find a better solution.

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

#449

Post by EpicEng »

jokola wrote: post #373
EpicEng wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some people think that directness and honesty is identical to saying racist, sexist, and homophobic things Not any serious people, so why do we care?

There are plenty of ordinary people that e.g. prefer one religion to other or believe in traditional gender roles. Some of those people believe they should be able to express those opinions in the same way people express opinions about diversity or equality regardless if other people considered those opinions e.g. sexist. I happen to disagree with those people, but I wouldn't consider their opinions less serious.

So you wouldn't consider an opinion 'less serious' if the opinion is that directness and honesty is identical to saying racist, sexist, and homophobic things? Because that's what we're talking about, and I would absolutely write that off as 100% nonsense. Just because someone believes in something doesn't mean it's not stupid.

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

#450

Post by EpicEng »

wyager wrote: post #387
EpicEng wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Some people think that directness and honesty is identical to saying racist, sexist, and homophobic things Not any serious people, so why do we care?

Because we have to deal with them on a daily basis and they have political power? I’m not sure how you’re defining “not serious”.

Who are these people? Do you have names? I don't see this at all in people with political power. Who are you 'dealing with on a daily basis'?
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