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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.”

#691

Post by sjwright »

treis wrote: post #672
nodja wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Has he ever acknowledged his attitude in any way? Yes. > I don't know where you happen to be based, but this 'you have to be nice' seems to be very popular in the US. > The same way we have developers and marketing people and legal people who speak different languages, I think we can have some developers who are used to—and prefer—a more confrontational style, and still also have people who don't, > Maybe it's just…

Calling people morons isn't being confrontational. It's being an asshole.

That's your opinion. Others would say the greater asshole is one who refuses to confront morons with their own moronic behaviour. That person is denying the moron opportunity to self-reflect and improve themselves.

And before you interject, I would also assert that numbing the confrontation with "civility" also nullifies the effect.

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

#692

Post by m_mueller »

Atheros wrote: post #577
candiodari wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool! I'm pretty sure people aren't up in arms about Linus being a baby, but about your refusal to call out people on "subpar performance". Replace "subpar performance" with whatever you feel is an acceptable name for executing wrongly on very bad ideas. And I feel li…

If your organization repeatedly rewards failure then maybe you should start thinking about switching teams or companies.

.. or the country?

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

#693

Post by sjwright »

lucideer wrote: post #642
salvar wrote: post #638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Linus doesn't get personal when he calls Intel engineers morons? Are they not persons?

Yeah you're right. I should have worded that differently, my point was that in using the term "moron", he was focusing on the interface design: code. Linus' tone is not really defensible, but I just don't think the response compares favourably either. And, perhaps more importantly, Linus' concerns aren't addressed and the response isn't particularly informative. dwmw2 mentions in comments here on this HN thread that…

At the end of the day, I just don't care about this tone argument. I only care that the issue is resolved properly, and like it or not, there's nobody I would trust to analyse an issue like this more than Linus.

People in this thread are making the (understandable) mistake of assuming that Linus' remarks were aimed at individual engineers at Intel. But they obviously weren't: they were clearly aimed at senior management at Intel to say "we're not going to accept garbage from you."

And I don't even care if it was garbage. Because either it was garbage, or they failed to demonstrate to Linus that it was not garbage. Either way this is entirely Intel's fault.

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

#694

Post by syshum »

piyush_soni wrote: post #688
syshum wrote: post #630

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you are trolling, or naive into the Politically Correct Social Justice world around you if you do not understand the point of view I am speaking against. World where people are fired from their jobs because they tell a joke someone finds offensive, I world where you are just one twit or one overheard conversation away from the outrage mob ruining your life..

I think others have clearly communicated who they think is the troll by flagging.

lol... No Social Justice Advocates hate freedom of speech as you seem to as well. Flagging is an indication they they disapprove of my views and would like to censor it. It is indication they do not believe in the concept of free speech

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

#695

Post by SpEd3Y »

I have a question :)

Can it be that Linus is so angry with people and their incompetence because he actually gives a shit about Linux and the code?

I'm not interested if his rants are ethic or not, if they are effective or not. I'm just trying to understand why he's ranting? Because he's an ill adjusted person? Or is there something else?

Linus is 'infamous' for being very angry with people who write shitty code. Why is that? If you read the chapters written by him in 'The Hacker Ethic', you find out that he codes because he's enjoying it, it's what makes him happy, so to speak. Therefore, he is invested in the code he writes. It's not just a job for him. It's his life's project, his 'baby' if you will.

Can it be that because he's so emotionally invested into the code, when he sees that other people push shitty code and don't care about it, the intensity of the emotions he feels are way higher than the emotions of a manager who's just 'doing his job'? Can it be that because he cares so much, he's having a hard time not reacting so 'emotionally'?

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

#696

Post by lmm »

pintxo wrote: post #631
lmm wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The processor's security features should perform as described - anything less is a very nasty surprise waiting for users. Intel could allow users to opt-in to insecure behaviour for performance, but insecurity absolutely must be opt-in rather than opt-out.

"The processor should perform as described - anything less is a very nasty surprise waiting for users. Intel could allow users to opt-in to less performant behaviour for security, but bad performance absolutely must be opt-in rather than opt-out." Take away: it all depends on the users preferences. I am with you, in most cases, it should be about security, but I guess there are legitimate use-cases for the opposite a…

> "The processor should perform as described - anything less is a very nasty surprise waiting for users. Intel could allow users to opt-in to less performant behaviour for security, but bad performance absolutely must be opt-in rather than opt-out."

But that isn't true. Poor performance is not remotely in the same class of "very nasty surprise" that security model violations are.

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

#697

Post by candiodari »

vlovich123 wrote: post #592
candiodari wrote: post #572

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm sure I'll get downvoted though for calling Linus a baby, because somehow insulting Linus for his flaws is never ok but when Linus does it it's so cool! I'm pretty sure people aren't up in arms about Linus being a baby, but about your refusal to call out people on "subpar performance". Replace "subpar performance" with whatever you feel is an acceptable name for executing wrongly on very bad ideas. And I feel li…

Here's the thing though. People always make mistakes. It's an unavoidable fact of life. The more power you have the bigger the scale of your fuckup. The problem is the denial of a problem (which Intel did in some ways & didn't in other) & making misleading statements. Those were all decisions not made at an engineering level BTW so berating an engineer won't help. Finally, reading that thread further, it does seem li…

You do realize Intel has decided to NOT fix this issue, right ? Surely some yelling about this is in order. (because fixing the issue would cost them in benchmarks)

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

#698

Post by sgc »

kakarot wrote: post #474
sgc wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He certainly doesn't think it is a mistake. And that would fall within the spectrum of possibilities, but I would doubt anyone considers that as a probable reason, since it would be stupid to push something like that right now. Like future-destroying stupid.

But if he doesn't think it's a mistake... what could it be?

He says:

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.

I'm sure there is some lawyer there who says "we'll have to go through motions to protect against a lawsuit". But legal reasons do not make for good technology, or good patches that I should apply.

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

#699

Post by piyush_soni »

syshum wrote: post #694
piyush_soni wrote: post #688

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think others have clearly communicated who they think is the troll by flagging.

lol... No Social Justice Advocates hate freedom of speech as you seem to as well. Flagging is an indication they they disapprove of my views and would like to censor it. It is indication they do not believe in the concept of free speech

:) Everyone who disagrees with you is either a troll, 'social justice advocate', and what not. Freedom of speech is a legal right, but civilized behavior is an basic expectation and as a privately managed forum HN can enforce their own expected behavior. Your arguments were anyway not constructive as per their guidelines. No further argument from me.
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