Linus Has Something on His Mind
Posted on July 20th, 2008 at 9:35 amLinus Torvalds — founder, creator, and general master of all things Linux — is not exactly known for being bashful or slow to share his thoughts. To quote the man himself: “I’m a bastard. I have absolutely no clue why people can ever think otherwise.” This week, though, he’s gotten an extra share of attention.
The Linusmania — which quickly became a bubbling brouhaha — began with a message to the Linux kernel mailing list as part of an ongoing discussion of the way senior kernel developers like Torvalds handle security bug disclosure. Torvalds began by suggesting that “security people” are motivated by a desire for the glory associated with discovering vulnerabilities, and that this devalues the contributions of those committed to fixing “boring normal bugs.” He then went on to identify the “OpenBSD crowd” as typifying this position, and described them — rather curiously — as “a bunch of masturbating monkeys.”
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