Here is what a true expert has to say:
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/linus-torvalds-declares-intel-fix-202431449.html
12 replies (most recent on top)
David Woodhouse is an engineer at Amazon UK. Linus was communicating directly with him, and others. They obviously do not care if the communication is public but that is irrelevant.
He was not „communicating with Amazon“ there. That was a public email chain on a mailing list.
Whenever I have to explain such basic things to people, I am not so surprised anymore that crap like Meltdown and Spectre could happen at Intel.
Linus may be wrong on some commercial and business perspectives, however, people trust his opinion a lot and his opinion definitely matters. Reminder, he was communicating with Amazon, and I suspect he is communicating with lots of other senior people at different companies.
No, his opinion doesn‘t matter if it is laced with paranoia and a disregard for certain basic business necessities.
He may be technically correct (the best kind of correct), but he has zero understanding of what is needed to run a business. He is in a position of „I can do whatever the f I want“ and not in a position where he is responsible for 100,000 employees or for shareholders who have very specific expectations. In the nice world Linus is living in, he would just shut down CPU production at Intel the moment the company is informed about the vulnerabilities, stop selling processors completely and then focus everyone in the company on releasing a perfect patch (or even better, issue a recall). Then, Intel CPUs are redesigned from scratch, and in two years, the company starts releasing new processors. That is how things should work according to Linus. I know, @1sft is going to call me arrogant for stating this, and Linus would call me names and shower me with expletives (as these are apparently the best arguments he has as a „true proven expert on the subject“), but it doesn‘t change the simple fact: That is not how the world works.
Intel is the company that has contributed by far the largest amount of work into the Linux kernel over the years. Linus is quite quick to bite a hand that has been feeding his pet project quite well. If he thinks Intel is staging some kind of conspiracy here, then he‘d better roll back the tens of thousands of patches that evil company has contributed to the Linux kernel.
Linus is communicating with senior people at Amazon so I don't think it is just his opinion or that his opinion matters. I would suggest that many hardware experts TRUST Linus more than they TRUST Intel right now. His opinion definitely matters because he is a true proven expert on the subject.
@1sft Someone states a simple fact, and you call it arrogance. Same discussion style as Torvalds‘.
@1myx: Very sad when the result of "hundred engineers at Intel weigh all options" turns out to be utter crap. Tells a lot about what the company has devolved into, perhaps hiring qualified staff would help?
@1kgp: Same old arrogance, "customers are going to continue buying processors affected by Meltdown". Might have worked 5 years ago, but now there are better alternatives (Ryzen) available. My next processor will not be from Intel, and I want a refund for the defective processors I have now.
Of course Intel is making the changes architectural - for now. What other choice is there? Sending repair teams to everyone who bought an intel processor in the last ten years to drill into the processors with a micro drill and fix the problem under an electron microscope??
And for the time being, customers are going to continue buying processors affected by Meltdown. Torvald needs to understand that! Perhaps that would help him tone down his bizarre paranoia.
But from looking at that email thread, his best argument against what I write would now be „STOP DRINKING THE KOOL-AID! IT WILL MELT YOUR BRAIN!“ Yes, that is apparently how smart people discuss.
Linus might be a highly intelligent guy, but he also suffers from some kind of autism that makes him incapable of seeing other people’s sides and thus from leading a meaningful discussion. Linux development has been suffering from that for a long time. When a hundred engineers at Intel weigh all options and release a patch based on that which Linus does not like, then he immediately smells a conspiracy (as you can see from his comments).
There are other experts who are giving a more balanced view. Yes, the situatuon is terrible, the patches are crap, but quoting Linus is pointless in this whole debate.
@-jjl. Are you a complete frackin moron? Linus Torvalds is smarter than any 15 Intel software developers combined. Get a life loser.
"Complete and utter Garbage" Just like everyone of your posts OP.
Here is an interesting quote"
"Is Intel really planning on making this sh-- architectural? Has anybody talked to them and told them they are f*cking insane? They do literally insane things. They do things that do not make sense. That makes all your [i.e. Woodhouse's] arguments questionable and suspicious. The patches do things that are not sane. ...So somebody isn't telling the truth here. Somebody is pushing complete garbage for unclear reasons. Sorry for having to point that out."