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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.”

#381

Post by floatingatoll »

skwirl wrote: post #337
mrmondo wrote: post #195

I wish people in this thread would stop turning the discussion into a straw-man argument about Linus’s language and focus their attention to the technical and security problems at hand. Some people are easily offended, some people easily offend, some people are direct, some people are indirect - get over it. What matters here is the quality of the code / workarounds that are being presented, by whom and what alternat…

His language is why this particular post is getting such traction. This is what he does. You can't get attention for your bluntness and not have your bluntness discussed.

His language is not particularly new or interesting. His technical point is very interesting, as it exposes a simple question-test for evaluating Intel’s motivations as an outsider.

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

#382

Post by RainaRelanah »

eru wrote: post #176
deckard1 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People live in Slack and github today. The last time I had an actual conversation via email was probably 2 years ago. It's rather refreshing to see the Linux kernel keeping the tradition of using mailing lists. Every company I've worked at has felt the need to gather a bunch of people in a room (or teleconference) and "knock things out" in real-time. Then, everyone leaves and develops a severe case of amnesia. Never…

Google Docs is surprisingly good for some of this kind of deliberation. (We used it at Google.) Especially when you use the 'suggesting' feature. It's a bit like a mini-PR for your docs. Google Wave was supposed to be really good for this---better than email.

There isn't a week that passes where I don't miss Google Wave. It was a bit bloated, and javascript engines weren't quite up to speed for it (it was practically unusable on FireFox), but I still believe it was the best chance at an email evolution that we'll see in our lifetimes.

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

#383

Post by dschuetz »

acdha wrote: post #338
dschuetz wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, jeez. If I messed up badly and my boss, colleague, wife calls me a moron about this particular mess it doesn't mean they think I'm a moron generally, they just call it as it is, and I'm responsible for it. I don't take it personally just because they call me a 'moron', especially if I deserve it! That means that if you get offended by the way someone else criticizes the mess you're responsible for you are not a…

The behavior you’re describing may be satisfying for the person slinging insults but is widely recognized as unhelpful by most management or educational guidelines because it doesn’t lead to any positive outcomes but does lower morale and increase stress. Most people are going to take it personally, especially when it’s public in front of their peers, and since it’s so lazy and unhelpful there’s no benefit from doing…

I agree with that. But, even though it's all true what you are saying, within the context of the argument about Meltdown they definitely need to be able to suck up the blame for it. Being called a moron doesn't make this mess less bad.

Arguments on the internet are held public most of the time + it's all public record. Personal insults are generally not acceptable. But when is it personal and who decides what's personal and what not? Where is the point when insults are the least important part of the issue? Should the insulted person always take insults personal regardless what issue at hand?

I understand that sometimes an argument about an issue in reality is a battle of egos. But, seriously, Intel trying to wiggle themselves out of the noose with it's not a bug it's a feature PR stunts, I think insults are as appropriate as "thank you" and "have a nice day". So, if anyone says or does something stupid for no apparent reason, questioning the sanity of their decision making by calling them a moron is the way to go, imo.

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

#384

Post by dboreham »

peapicker wrote: post #353
Spooky23 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Worse still, imagine a world where there was no Linux, and Oracle/Sun happened?

Ironically, Sun might have not had to sell themselves to Oracle, and the world's server's might be running on SPARC chips that are immune to these issues. Linux is what allowed Intel to get its biggest foothold into the UNIX server market.

This is true, but if there hadn't been Linux there would have been something else to fill this niche (runs on commodity PC hardware, zero license cost). Sparc/Solaris wouldn't have continued to rule. Intel would have found some other workable solution.

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

#385

Post by trevyn »

snowwrestler wrote: post #377
josteink wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have the case of SJWs and Internet lynch mob’s being a real life threats to your project, your personal privacy and potentially your employment if you don’t show yourself to be “tolerant” enough in your communication. Calling genuine shit out as such can literally land you in a shitstorm if the person receiving message is of wrong color or sexualual orientation, etc, and decides to make that the point of the…

Linus would be just as effective if he never used another swear word. It is his technical knowledge, his position as the final committer, and his willingness to stand up for what he believes in, that gives him power. Ranting and swearing is part of who he is personally, but those are not generally required for being a good project leader.

I think the ranting and swearing help -- they make him more memorable, and therefore more generally well-known. This can then feed on itself a bit to make him more of a public "celebrity" and have more pull than he would otherwise.

I agree that his other skills are likely more important overall, and there are certainly other ways to be memorable, but I don't think you can discount the contribution of the ranting.

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

#386

Post by Scarblac »

snowwrestler wrote: post #377
josteink wrote: post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have the case of SJWs and Internet lynch mob’s being a real life threats to your project, your personal privacy and potentially your employment if you don’t show yourself to be “tolerant” enough in your communication. Calling genuine shit out as such can literally land you in a shitstorm if the person receiving message is of wrong color or sexualual orientation, etc, and decides to make that the point of the…

Linus would be just as effective if he never used another swear word. It is his technical knowledge, his position as the final committer, and his willingness to stand up for what he believes in, that gives him power. Ranting and swearing is part of who he is personally, but those are not generally required for being a good project leader.

Without the swear words this wouldn't get as much publicity as it does, and that may help in getting Intel to change.

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

#387

Post by wyager »

EpicEng wrote: post #344
pessimizer wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

>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”.

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

#388

Post by LyndsySimon »

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.

> Not only spot, but also invests the energy in calling it out and explaining it.

It also requires the social capital necessary for the calls to be taken seriously.

I don't worry about Linus being silenced by prevailing culture; I worry that there won't be another Linus after him.

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

#389

Post by plorkyeran »

eecc wrote: post #328
fareesh wrote: post #158

From what I understand of meltdown and spectre, they use a side channel attack to figure out CPU cache values after some speculative execution has been done. Can it not be solved by ensuring that the CPU either clears or purposefully does not cache memory that is read during speculative execution?

more or less... I'm surprised the CPU doesn't already flush caches after speculative execution branches are abandoned

Flushing the cache after every branch misprediction would probably make branch prediction a net loss in performance.

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

#390

Post by rhizome »

azernik wrote: post #111
bashcoder wrote: post #30

The most striking thing here is that Linus has apparently dismissed incompetence as a rational explanation. Yes, he is often brash, but usually he is accusing someone of sheer stupidity. He does not do that here. Linus alleges that we are being lied to - that we don’t know the full story, nor Intel’s motives. Furthermore, we are left to wonder if Microsoft is also being fed “bullshit” patches, and if they may be less…

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."

"Intel: Where Security is Optional"
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