Washington Post's ridiculous anti Linus/Linux propaganda
 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/bus...-the-argument/

I would like to quote every blatant attack but I have no time for this.

That was actually painful to read. As in, ”Really bad journalism”.

What Linus said made sense though.

I'm not a fan of the format or style of that "technology press" style article, but it's not the worst I've seen and the essence of the article is in fact true - Linus does not prioritise security. In my opinion having read his comments over the years, he finds it convenient to rubbish the opinions and approaches of security focused projects rather than to actually tackle the problem.

Hi all...

The article may not overflowing with praise but I've definitely seem more "hostile" reporting than what I saw in this article. If there are bad perceptions concerning Mr. Torvalds, I think he has to bear at least some responsibility, considering the choice of words he has used (out of anger) to address those whom he has disagreed with, as mentioned in the article. :(

Regards...

I agree and disagree with the article. There will never be total security. Besides. We can get very secure systems. Just map your login to a selinux user context and see how much you can do with a system out of the box. Windows also did not become popular because it was secure. It is easy to use. Linux is gaining traction and messing up userland now will be suicide. I think the article is a tad too long. But in the end, people can do with the kernel what they want, so the author can rally his troups and design a new one based on security. Nothing is stopping him or others. I personally would like to see more security, but i would not want to invest hours trying to get stuff running, so it is the same as always. Dog chasing its tail. The system can be made more secure, but you need to spend time on it. That i think is what people do not want to do, especially in the I want it know mindset most of us including me have.

This is no reason to just adopt a lax and dismissive attitude towards it. Any software developer who ignores security and puts it on the back burner, might well still be a genius, but is also being careless and complacent.

You're talking about one particular implementation and not, in my opinion, a very good one which tries to solve a few specific problems in a specific manner. This is more about basic security features such as ASLR which should have been built into the Linux kernel as standard 10 years ago. Any user or distribution could turn these off at compile time if desired - the point being that no one was really working on these things. It was down to grsecurity/pax to highlight this and develop "hardening" for the kernel and face being dismissed as "crazies" by Torvalds.

Spengler had this to say about Linux's weak KASLR: https://forums.grsecurity.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3367

which is entirely irrelevant.
Linux is gaining "traction" but the main area is in embedded devices, particularly Android. Security is as important here as anywhere else.

Member response
 

Hi,

The article was slanted but did reflect Linus's autocratic styles for managing the 'kernel'. The author kept stating the kernel/Linux was a OS and I find that some people do reference the kernel as the OS. It happens to be the heart of a Linux distribution. Maybe the author should do better research so as to prevent falling into traps. Simple wiki source would help;The article was resourceful for security sense from their source perspective.

As for security, I find it necessary to keep my systems closed to the world to prevent issues. Same is so for any system that may be accessed remotely, user be aware.

I do read the post daily and know when the slant does appear therefore no surprise in that article. Still informative for someone who can discern.
:hattip:

The final paragraph of the story reveals the bias: "but first, you must change the mind of Linus." And, the writer never gets specific as to what would be a better alternative ... nor does he cite by-name any of the oblique critics to which the article refers. Which is journalistically disappointing. The article paints a vaguely-FUD picture but it's just a paint-by-numbers covering.

Yet I'm pretty sure that if he was heaping praise on Linus and Linux, no one here would give a [mod remove language] about the 'journalistic quality' of the article...

Moderator response
 

@cynwulf

You have been a LQ member long enough to know not use that kind of language;From LQ Rules

I found incidences of "shit" going back to 2011 posted by me. Haven't been pulled up for using that word here ever before. Yet here we in a thread where Linus Torvalds and the Linux kernel are criticised and where "journalistic quality" is being addressed and suddenly "shit" is not ok.

I searched for "shit" and found over 1000 results - 16 from last month and one other one today. No sign of a 'moderator response'.

"shit" is synonymous with "crap". So is "crap" out now as well?

You know what, forget it - I'm out.

I just read the article in the link and am left wondering if the link is correct. I was expecting to see a biased attack against Linux, but instead read a good article. Its "bias" is focusing on one issue; security. It gives impartial coverage to both sides.

The article is LINUX IS HUGE AND DOMINANT AND VERY IMPORTANT AND MUST, MUST, MUST BE TAKEN EVEN MORE SERIOUSLY THAN IT IS NOW.

What's the problem?

Meh ... it sure doesn't look like a particularly well-crafted article to me.

Not to "body slam" the author thereof (which, actually, is not what I intend to do), I'd just say that "I am under-impressed with it." I kinda think that if the writer and the editor(s) had worked a little harder with the interview-material that they had, and if they had fleshed-out their treatment of what Linus was talking about a little bit more, they could have come up with a better piece of writing, all without "snowing" their non-technical readership.

Washington Post has published much better (and more researched) writing in the past, than this particular example would suggest.

Fortunately, and to their credit, I know that WP generally does not "merely" go for the sensationalistic in their writing, as so many of their competitors tend to do . . . so I don't assert that they have tried to do so here. It's ... IMHO ... "meh, just not a well-written piece."

Oh well. "It has been written, and it's been published. Let's move on."

Agreed.
People complaining about an article that impartially covers both sides of one aspect of computer use as it relates to Linux "being an attack on Linux," says a lot about a sizeable portion of the Linux community. The sins made in that article were evaluating Linux critically and including quotes from Torvalds that show his attitude concerning security. Torvald's complacent attitude to security is not a secret. So why the fuss about this article?