Torvalds attacks IT industry 'security circus'

[roddierod]

"I think the OpenBSD crowd is a bunch of masturbating monkeys..." (http://news.cnet.com/Torvalds-attacks-IT-industry-security-circus/2100-1007_3-6243900.html)

[anomie]

I can think of a handful of characters in the Linux (and BSD) world who I respect very much for technical ability, yet score in the lower 2% for tact and diplomatic skill.

[TerryP]

That was worth a chuckle :-)

[BSDfan666]

Torvalds likes embarrassing himself, eventually nobody's going to want to employ him... regardless of his cult status. ;)

[lvlamb]

Don't start here.
I filtered Linux and GPL 4 from my misc@
The more people don't have an idea of wadzabout, the more increasing amount of people post nonsense.

[Carpetsmoker]

Torvalds likes embarrassing himself, eventually nobody's going to want to employ him... regardless of his cult status. ;)

Yeah, and this OpenBSD cult guy is probably even worse ;)

But was funny, be sure to read the last line:

"I talked to Linus about this already, he was humble about it and said it didn't look like it from the outside that we shared the same view," wrote Grabowski. "We all had a laugh about it."

[18Googol2]

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git (youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8)(> 1 hour long)

Warning: some parts of the content may not be appropriate for the minor

[TerryP]

Oy vey... this is gonna be a long watch !!!

[Carpetsmoker]

Tech Talk: Linus Torvalds on git (youtube.com/watch?v=4XpnKHJAok8)(> 1 hour long)

Warning: some parts of the content may not be appropriate for the minor

Interesting ... Does anyone here have experience with git? Is it as nice as Linus claims it is, or is he just talking out of his rear end?

[BSDfan666]

Interesting ... Does anyone here have experience with git? Is it as nice as Linus claims it is, or is he just talking out of his rear end?Git is horrible in design and implementation.

CVS and SVN are much better, in practise.. I use both, and I did give git a fair trial period, it's ways of doing things are far too foreign.

[phoenix]

Technically, you can't really compare git with svn. The former is a distributed source control system (everyone has their own trees/repos) while the latter is a centralised source control system (there's one central repo that everyone checks into, and they each have their own local working copy).

There are advantages to each setup.

Git is better suited to the Linux kernel development model (everyone does their own thing in their own trees, and people pull changes into their tree as needed). While Subversion is better suited to the FreeBSD development model (everyone works in their local working copy and checks their changes into one repo).

Can't comment on the specifics of either, though.

[tuck]

Youtube.com -> "openbsd" -> third video is a masturbating monkey :D

[Carpetsmoker]

Personally, I think the fourth result is more interesting .... But I'm not going to judge anyone by their sexual preferences ...

Anyway,
I decided to go for Bazaar (http://bazaar-vcs.org/) to replace CVS for my version control system ... As far as I can see and been able to test git also looks nice (What's so horrible in design and implementation?) but Bazaar seems nicer and suits my needs better...

[Fritz_Katz]

Torvalds: Fed up with the 'security circus'

By Ellen Messmer , Network World (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081408-torvalds-security-circus.html) , 08/14/2008

Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, says he's fed up with what he sees as a "security circus" surrounding software vulnerabilities and how they're hyped by security people.

(( ...snip... ))

Never one to mince words, Torvalds also lobbed a verbal charge at the OpenBSD community: "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."

This week Torvalds -- who says the only person involved in the OpenBSD community with whom he talked to about the "monkeys" barb found it funny -- acknowledges others probably found it offensive.

Via e-mail, he also explains why he finds security people to be so anathema.
Too often, so-called "security" is split into two camps: one that believes in nondisclosure of problems by hiding knowledge until a bug is fixed, and one that "revels in exposing vendor security holes because they see that as just another proof that the vendors are corrupt and crap, which admittedly mostly are," Torvalds states.

Torvalds went on to say he views both camps as "crazy." ....

(( more (http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081408-torvalds-security-circus.html) ))

[scottro]

My goodness, someone must be desperate for something to write about. That story is old already and they just printed it yesterday?

I think that journalists, of course, try to sell controversy, often where none exists. It's been mentioned and pretty much ignored in a few places.

As journalists and troublemakers tend to do, it was probably taken out of context. Perhaps it just came down to there aren't as many Linux hating BSDers or BSD hating Linuxers as the publicizers of the statement hoped there would be. <shrug>.
A little after that, he made fun of it himself--posting something on a kernel mailing list, he said let's get this information out. All digg users are wanking walruses--his point being that since he'd insulted digg users, it was going to get the post dugg.
He seems to like alliteration about masturbation. :)

Self stimulating silliness?

Anyway, it's kind of a non-issue non-story, and one wonders what the heck was the motivation of Ms. Nessner in republishing it? Maybe she likes trouble and was disappointed that there was so little reaction to it the first time?

Although I wonder, with the world falling apart, perhaps people finally realize that there are more important things to worry about.

[anomie]

I think that journalists, of course, try to sell controversy, often where none exists...

Although I wonder, with the world falling apart, perhaps people finally realize that there are more important things to worry about.

I hope the irony's not lost on you, scottro. :) The world has been falling apart since we started walking upright (probably much earlier). The press just makes its money by scaring the sh** out of everyone.

For the record, I agree with you on the story -- very much a non-event.

[harisman]

I think Linus IS the only definition of the term "masturbating monkey....".
This must be added to the wikipedia as well :D

If that arrogant found the OpenBSD community "mastrubating" , he must propose to the zillions of linux ventors to remove the "mastrubating openssh" from their distributions at once.

[BuSerD]

Linus is what Linus has always been, a smart guy with grand opinions that he expresses in insulting ways. Linus is(not was because its not likely that his opinion has changed) flat out wrong about the (PHENOMENAL) OpenBSD devs. I think that his point is that focusing on securing(newer) code while ignoring(older) bugs is not really in the interest of security as the bugs remain a possible exploit avenue. Unfortunately, they are one and the same and the OpenBSD model is far superior in terms of security than ANY GNU/Linux distribution. This article was entertaining at best but Linus should aim this rant where it would be most applicable; To the GNU/Linux distributors and devs.