4 ms·

I wouldn't be so harsh. Linus thinks and works in the here and now. He is neither interested in the theoretical or bothered by what theoretical people have to s

by jpgvm 11y ago

I wouldn't be so harsh. Linus thinks and works in the here and now. He is neither interested in the theoretical or bothered by what theoretical people have to say about him. He ships code that works and works well and generally speaking has a good security track record compared to many userspace systems (Adobe Flash anyone?). At the time he was against microkernels it would be fair to say monolithic kernels did definitely have (and continue to have) performance advantages over microkernel architectures. Have things changed? Somewhat. Some of how OS kernels are used has changed and that has made microkernels more attractive again. I feel the rest of your argument just feels like the jab at Linus is tacked on though because he doesn't seem to be against capabilties system. (infact the kernel has what? 3 capabilities systems?) Nor does he seem against forms of multi-level security or program shepherding. So maybe those weren't meant to be directed at him. Either way I just wanted to say that people should give him some slack, his job isn't to please security zealots but to ship software all of us use and many of us depend on for our livelihood in a timely and reliable manner.

vezzy-fnord 11y ago
At the time he was against microkernels, QNX had already demonstrated they were faster than the monolithic state of the art. [1] Linux does not have any form of capabilities (maybe Capsicum, but it's not finished). Capabilities are not POSIX capabilities, which redefined a decade-old term, but rather this [2]. The rest is just trite dismissals of the same faux pragmatism that Linus embodies. He's "not interested in the theoretical", as if there is any other? Before the now-mundane ideas became the staples of pragmatists, they were theories hidden in the research literature. Linus is a major figurehead and his promoting of self-destructive attitudes is undesirable. In fact, you claim he lives in the here and now. He does not. The here and now has long surpassed him and he now lives in his own realm. [1] https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.pdf https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.p... [2] http://www.eros-os.org/essays/capintro.html http://www.eros-os.org/essays/capintro.html
- armitron 11y ago
  I didn't really refer to his massive ego in my previous comment, but this is another facet of his idiocy in my opinion. The signs were there 20 years ago, but now one could say that the adorations and worship of vast number of subordinates and minions have all turned him into a monster, like a caricature of the corrupt Roman emperors. I sure hope some other leading figure emerges and seizes some control over Linux because I sure don't see Linus changing the way he does business.
  - antocv 11y ago
    My vote goes to Spender.
armitron 11y ago
No, nobody should give Linus any slack whatsoever. He's responsible for the current fiasco, where stock Linux kernel is a joke security-wise, one can find reliable vulnerabilities in a few hours, once the debugging infrastructure is there. Compare that with Windows where it's a few weeks to a few months and then a lot more work to get the reliability. Linus holds the vast majority of the blame here, simply put, he is an idiot when it comes to security or looking ahead at how things will be in a couple of years. Linux is slowly entering every single aspect of our lives and this trend will only accelerate via IoT. Imagine what this means about security with Linus in charge. We now KNOW that there are intelligent adversaries out there that spend hundreds of millions to defeat security worldwide. It is simply UNACCEPTABLE and downright MALICIOUS STUPIDITY for Linus to hold the views he does in this day and age. He's been repeatedly warned and cautioned for more than a DECADE now and he's laughed at and ignored valid criticisms from people with much more foresight than him. If this trend continues, he should be NAILED to the cross. A security bug is NOT just a bug. No, I shouldn't have to DISCONNECT everything that runs Linux from the Internet if I want it to have a modicum of security.
- infinity0 11y ago
  > Linux kernel is a joke security-wise, one can find reliable vulnerabilities in a few hours Do you have some details on this? I did not realise the situation was so bad.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    I'm not sure objectively what the current state is. However, it's a little known fact that Linux kernel specifically (due to fame) benefits from tons of academic work on bug hunting tools. Every time they run a new one, they find all kinds of problems that are preventable with a safer language or sound architecture. Many of them would've been contained in a microkernel architecture rather than have full access to memory. So, one could say it's pretty bad even if the "many eyes" and code audits are finding/fixing a ton. Simply too many to justify if their process is any good. An recent example I found was the Saturn project throwing an automated tool at it and finding 100+ real bugs in one go. http://saturn.stanford.edu/pages/papersindex.html http://saturn.stanford.edu/pages/papersindex.html
nickpsecurity 11y ago
The first systems to be designed for robustness (and have it in practice) were opposite of Linus's approach to doing things. There's some similarities on occasion, which mainly shows talent learned through trial and error. The proven principles for highly reliable and secure OS's aren't applied, though. This is intentional despite massive evidence to the contrary of his position. Meanwhile, systems like THE (Dijkstra), Burroughs B5500, IBM System/38, GEMSOS (Schell), RC4000 (Hansen), MULTICS, KeyKOS (Bomberger et al), and VAX VMM Security Kernel (Karger/Lipner) showed how to design and implement systems with ultra-high reliability and/or security. These lessons were mostly ignored time and time again even when they could be applied. User-mode drivers and languages with pointer/buffer/stack protection would have by themselves prevented ridiculous amounts of problems. I heard that, after around 2-3 decades, the UNIX crowd is adding some user-mode drivers. See the problem? Note: Far as lightweight systems & adaptivity, you should see the work of Brinch Hansen, Niklaus Wirth, and Andy Tannenbaum. They applied safe, modular techniques on systems with less resources than today's. UNIX and Linus resist for both personal preference and inertia, not valid technical objections.

by jpgvm 11y ago

vezzy-fnord 11y ago

At the time he was against microkernels, QNX had already demonstrated they were faster than the monolithic state of the art. [1] Linux does not have any form of capabilities (maybe Capsicum, but it's not finished). Capabilities are not POSIX capabilities, which redefined a decade-old term, but rather this [2]. The rest is just trite dismissals of the same faux pragmatism that Linus embodies. He's "not interested in the theoretical", as if there is any other? Before the now-mundane ideas became the staples of pragmatists, they were theories hidden in the research literature. Linus is a major figurehead and his promoting of self-destructive attitudes is undesirable. In fact, you claim he lives in the here and now. He does not. The here and now has long surpassed him and he now lives in his own realm. [1] https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.pdf https://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~voelker/cse221/papers/qnx-paper92.p... [2] http://www.eros-os.org/essays/capintro.html http://www.eros-os.org/essays/capintro.html

armitron 11y ago
I didn't really refer to his massive ego in my previous comment, but this is another facet of his idiocy in my opinion. The signs were there 20 years ago, but now one could say that the adorations and worship of vast number of subordinates and minions have all turned him into a monster, like a caricature of the corrupt Roman emperors. I sure hope some other leading figure emerges and seizes some control over Linux because I sure don't see Linus changing the way he does business.
- antocv 11y ago
  My vote goes to Spender.

armitron 11y ago

No, nobody should give Linus any slack whatsoever. He's responsible for the current fiasco, where stock Linux kernel is a joke security-wise, one can find reliable vulnerabilities in a few hours, once the debugging infrastructure is there. Compare that with Windows where it's a few weeks to a few months and then a lot more work to get the reliability. Linus holds the vast majority of the blame here, simply put, he is an idiot when it comes to security or looking ahead at how things will be in a couple of years. Linux is slowly entering every single aspect of our lives and this trend will only accelerate via IoT. Imagine what this means about security with Linus in charge. We now KNOW that there are intelligent adversaries out there that spend hundreds of millions to defeat security worldwide. It is simply UNACCEPTABLE and downright MALICIOUS STUPIDITY for Linus to hold the views he does in this day and age. He's been repeatedly warned and cautioned for more than a DECADE now and he's laughed at and ignored valid criticisms from people with much more foresight than him. If this trend continues, he should be NAILED to the cross. A security bug is NOT just a bug. No, I shouldn't have to DISCONNECT everything that runs Linux from the Internet if I want it to have a modicum of security.

infinity0 11y ago
> Linux kernel is a joke security-wise, one can find reliable vulnerabilities in a few hours Do you have some details on this? I did not realise the situation was so bad.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I'm not sure objectively what the current state is. However, it's a little known fact that Linux kernel specifically (due to fame) benefits from tons of academic work on bug hunting tools. Every time they run a new one, they find all kinds of problems that are preventable with a safer language or sound architecture. Many of them would've been contained in a microkernel architecture rather than have full access to memory. So, one could say it's pretty bad even if the "many eyes" and code audits are finding/fixing a ton. Simply too many to justify if their process is any good. An recent example I found was the Saturn project throwing an automated tool at it and finding 100+ real bugs in one go. http://saturn.stanford.edu/pages/papersindex.html http://saturn.stanford.edu/pages/papersindex.html

nickpsecurity 11y ago

The first systems to be designed for robustness (and have it in practice) were opposite of Linus's approach to doing things. There's some similarities on occasion, which mainly shows talent learned through trial and error. The proven principles for highly reliable and secure OS's aren't applied, though. This is intentional despite massive evidence to the contrary of his position. Meanwhile, systems like THE (Dijkstra), Burroughs B5500, IBM System/38, GEMSOS (Schell), RC4000 (Hansen), MULTICS, KeyKOS (Bomberger et al), and VAX VMM Security Kernel (Karger/Lipner) showed how to design and implement systems with ultra-high reliability and/or security. These lessons were mostly ignored time and time again even when they could be applied. User-mode drivers and languages with pointer/buffer/stack protection would have by themselves prevented ridiculous amounts of problems. I heard that, after around 2-3 decades, the UNIX crowd is adding some user-mode drivers. See the problem? Note: Far as lightweight systems & adaptivity, you should see the work of Brinch Hansen, Niklaus Wirth, and Andy Tannenbaum. They applied safe, modular techniques on systems with less resources than today's. UNIX and Linus resist for both personal preference and inertia, not valid technical objections.