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http://www.vnunet.com

Linus Torvalds has launched a blistering attack on security programmers who object to adding the Smack application to the upcoming 2.6.24 Linux kernel.
In an often heated exchange, Torvalds accused security programmers of being too concerned with theoretical problems and not enough with practical applications.
Torvalds concluded by stating that LSM will stay in the kernel and that this is his final decision.

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C733tus's picture
Created by C733tus 14 years 34 weeks ago – Made popular 14 years 34 weeks ago
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Jimbob's picture

Jimbob

14 years 34 weeks 6 days 39 min ago

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More evidence that we either need

More evidence that we either need a new captain for the ship or a new ship altogether. Egotistical tyrannical dictators are not who you want in charge. I wish all the Linux devs would jump ship and join the Hurd.

kiba's picture

kiba

14 years 34 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago

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Both RMS and Linus are egoistic.

Both RMS and Linus are egoistic. :P Got a better idea?

spikeb's picture

spikeb

14 years 34 weeks 5 days 22 hours ago

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Just Linus being Linus, nothing

Just Linus being Linus, nothing new. Linux started out with a flamewar of epic proportions. Either we've needed to do such jumping for a long time, or we never did need to.

x-nc's picture

x-nc

14 years 34 weeks 7 hours 11 min ago

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Having interacted with the major

Having interacted with the major "personalities" of the Linux/FSF world for the last 16 years I can say that Linux is the least egotistical of the bunch. That's not to say he's without ego. All techies have some aspect of Alpha Male personality (even the women, though they are able to control it better).

I haven't red the full article yet but then again I may not read it at all. I've mostly retired from the Linux/Open Source world since '04 after spending 13 years in it. The flame wars aren't that big of a problem, it's the over-the-top fanaticism shown by the people who are extremely new to the community (i.e. anyone who joined after 1995). The worst are those who have only been involved for the last 5 or so years.

As for security, have you ever worked on a truly secure system? I had the "pleasure" of playing with Trusted-MLS+ a while back. About the only command you can run is 'ls'. Security should focus on what needs to be done now, them what needs to be done short-term and then get into the long-term theoretical stuff.

And that's my $0.02 worth.

Jimbob's picture

Jimbob

14 years 34 weeks 3 hours 23 min ago

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Well, despite your personal interaction

Well, despite your personal interaction with the major personalities, which personality keeps flaming his own community in text?... Why it's Linus Torvalds, of course.

One of the beautiful things about email communication is that after you've written your rant you can re-read it before you hit send. Old Linus doesn't seem to think he should ever just hit delete instead of send.

He should leave the leadership to the leaders; philosophy to the philosophers; licensing to the lawyers; politics to the politicians; and, in this case, security to the security experts. But he just keeps thinking he's an expert on everything.

That's called an (undeserved) ego. And it's been fed by all these people raving about how clever he is for "inventing" Linux. And, just because he did, they keep asking him for his opinion on everything.

Linux would be nowhere right now if it hadn't been chosen as the kernel for GNU.

The GNU people, on the other hand, would have gone on and developed the Hurd and we would GNU/Hurd instead of GNU/Linux. Admittedly, we would be a year or two behind where we are now with GNU/Linux, but at least we would have one leader who knows what he's talking about instead of a kernel developer who doesn't. That's like putting Scotty in charge of the Enterprise because he can build a warp drive. He just doesn't have the skills to be in charge.

RMS deserves the ego he has being that he created the philosophy, the movement, the license, and the GNU project.

C733tus's picture

C733tus

14 years 34 weeks 2 hours 59 min ago

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We need a new leader. A charismatic

We need a new leader. A charismatic one. No offense to RMS but he just doesn't have the look or the voice. He also might have the credentials and the right philosophy but he's just a bit heavy handed and his followers are a bit too extreme and too demanding of the masses, who are - let's face it - not that concerned with important issues like freedom. They already think they have freedom, so it just doesn't work as a push. Basically the masses are like overgrown children and if you keep telling them off for not doing the right thing, especially when they don't understand why it's not the right thing, they start to resent you.

On the other hand, Torvalds is no leader either - as Jimbob already so rantingly suggested :) He doesn't get the philosophy. It sounds like he would have preferred a different license altogether now... maybe the BSD one. His interests may lie in mass adoption but his reasons for it are off.

We need someone else. We need a new middle ground movement that uses the open source "means" to achieve the free software "ends".

I mean, if we need to trick the masses into accepting freedom, then let's do it. We know it's good for them. In the immortal words of Valerie (Miracle Max's wife) "the chocolate coating makes it go down easy". Or, if you'd prefer a more famous but less funny quote: "a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down".

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