Aug 26
Linus Torvalds - Living in a dream world?
When I originally decided to write this post I was a bit hesitant about attacking Linus too vigorously. I do have a huge amount of respect for what this man has achieved, however I’m not going to censor myself in any way and need to say what has been irritating me for some time.
About a month ago I saw a news feed related to Mr. Torvalds’ comments here: http://article.gmane.org/gmane.linux.kernel/706950. His comments has since then been on my mind quite a lot and have actual decreased my regard for this man’s opinion, as he seems completely ignorant to the state of things.
To be fair, I should state that I do work with computer security and I use FreeBSD on my Laptop and several of my servers, so I might be a bit bias. However I do also have a couple of Linux machines, a couple of Linux servers and two Microsoft Windows systems - no Mac however, but that’s another discussion. But even though his comments were somewhat directed at people like me, I still don’t fit his stereotype completely (and don’t get mad easily) and therefore believe I am objective enough to comment in an adult way.
So - let’s get started. Let’s just put in his quote in it’s complete form and I’ll begin explaining why he’s wrong:
Btw, and you may not like this, since you are so focused on security, one
reason I refuse to bother with the whole security circus is that I think
it glorifies - and thus encourages - the wrong behavior.
It makes "heroes" out of security people, as if the people who don't just
fix normal bugs aren't as important.
In fact, all the boring normal bugs are _way_ more important, just because
there's a lot more of them. I don't think some spectacular security hole
should be glorified or cared about as being any more "special" than a
random spectacular crash due to bad locking.
Security people are often the black-and-white kind of people that I can't
stand. I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys, in
that they make such a big deal about concentrating on security to the
point where they pretty much admit that nothing else matters to them.
To me, security is important. But it's no less important than everything
*else* that is also important!
Linus
So why is he wrong? Well, it’s really not that complicated - he neglects to recognize what’s important for the biggest users of Linux systems in the world - the businesses and universities! The most important issues for these users are and have always been: Stability, Security and Reliability. All these humongous users have systems that need to stay up and running 24-7 all year long - without incident! So to claim that security issues aren’t more important than “normal” bugs is just plain naive! Functionality isn’t important for anyone but the end users, as the companies and institutions have already made the functions they want available - they don’t want their users to be able to do a bunch of stuff they didn’t expect or plan, so for them it doesn’t matter at all. Stability is another issue however and I do agree there isn’t much difference between a stability issue and a security issue.
Also the stuff about OpenBSD users being black-and-white - he’s got to be kidding right? By simply stating this without proof, he makes himself seem untrustworthy to me, because in my experience, I’ve seen the exact opposite! Linux users are the people whom are black-and-white, the people whom hate Microsoft for no other reason than they’re not Linux, the people whom claim all software should be free and whom believe that enterprises are killing innovation. Even though I’ve seen these things, I still wouldn’t conclude “Linux people are often the black-and-white kind of people…”, as I had no way of knowing this unless I actually knew enough of the world population of Linux users to claim that the majority believe certain things.
Also “Masturbating monkeys” - Stop being a fucking child! I can respect using profanities to emphasize your points and it would be easier to respect you if you weren’t the fucking creator of a struggling OS - but seriously… self-pleasuring primates? - Grow up and show some respect! The OpenBSD project has come out with a lot of good stable software and talking about them in this way is basically just like spitting in their fucking faces! It’s no different than if I said Linux users were donkey-fucking scat-lovers - an equally retarded statement!
And concerning Mr. Torvalds’ last point:
To me, security is important. But it's no less important than everything *else* that is also important!
Most will probably agree with this - as I also do - however we apparently have very different views of what is important and what isn’t important!
I recently tried out the “new” search engine Cuil which supposedly was the new up and coming competitor to Google. Now, I really went into this with an open mind and thought: “Hey, if they claim to be better than Google, they probably have even better features that make my searching and related tasks easier” — well, I was wrong!