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Linus Torvalds Isn't Looking 10 Years Ahead For Linux and That's OK

Posted by samzenpus on from the living-in-the-now dept.

darthcamaro writes: At the Linuxcon conference in Seattle today, Linus Torvalds responded to questions about Linux security and about the next 10 years of Linux. For security, Torvalds isn't too worried as he sees it just being about dealing with bugs. When it comes to having a roadmap he's not worried either as he just leaves that to others. "I'm a very plodding, pedestrian person and look only about six months ahead," Torvalds said. "I look at the current release and the next one, as I don't think planning 10 years ahead is sane."

4 of 108 comments (clear)

  1. Linux and Bloat by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you actually read TFA you see a little bit of nostalgia from Linus about how lean the kernel used to be and how modern Linux may be a little too bloated for some IoT applications. The truth is that Linux can certainly be less bloated that a full desktop Windows 10 installation, but it is nowhere near as lean as it used to be. Not much of an issue in larger hardware where even smartphones have more power than powerful desktops did 15 years ago, but there are definitely areas where the modern Linux kernel is a little too big for its own good.

    1. Re:Linux and Bloat by phantomfive · · Score: 5, Interesting

      To add to my earlier comment, note that most Linux installations are probably on Android, or in other embedded. If we used that as the metric, we may end up removing all mouse support, since most people don't use it.

      --
      "First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
  2. Re:Linus Torvalds Isn't Looking 10 Years Ahead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Difference is:

    Corporation - We should lay off half the workforce, that would save us so much money.
    [6 months later]
    Corporation - Why is productivity so low?

    Linus - Lets get/keep things working
    [6 months later]
    Linus - Lets get/keep things working

  3. Security is also about design by cant_get_a_good_nick · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "What I see is that security is bugs,"

    Pretty much all Outlook viruses were design issues, not bugs. They designed a mail system which, on a OS where files were executable by extension, attachments from unverifiable senders had their extension hidden so you didn't know it was an executable.

    This was baked in design. It wasn't an execution bug.

    There are entire classes of bugs you could get rid of by certain design choices. Address space layout randomization helps a lot. W ^ X, or if you can write to memory, you can't execute it. These are not infallible (there's lots of webpages on how to get past ASLR) but if we design these things as more secure, we will be more secure.