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Ubuntu Founder Pledges No Back Doors In Linux (eweek.com)
Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Canonical and Ubuntu Foundation, gave an interview to eWeek this week ahead of Ubuntu Online Summit (UOS). In the wide-ranging interview, Shuttleworth teased some features that we could expect in Ubuntu 16.10, and also talked about security and privacy. From the report: One thing that Ubuntu Linux users will also continue to rely on is the strong principled stance that Shuttleworth has on encryption. With the rapid growth of the Linux Foundation's Let's Encrypt free Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) certificate platform this year, Shuttleworth noted that it's a good idea to consider how that might work in an integrated way with Ubuntu. Overall, he said, the move to encryption as a universal expectation is really important. "We don't do encryption to hide things; we do encryption so we can choose what to share," Shuttleworth said. "That's a profound choice we should all be able to make." Shuttleworth emphasized that on the encryption debate, Canonical and Ubuntu are crystal clear. "We will never backdoor Ubuntu; we will never weaken encryption," he said.
Since Mark Shuttleworth is not in charge of Linux, I don't see how he can make this pledge.
Agreed. When Linus was directly confronted about whether he has been approached about backdoors in Linux, he said no, but while nodding his head. What a trustworthy guy!
Are you familiar with the concept of national security letters
Saying yes is the kind of action that makes you end up in a secret court where you aren't allowed to disclose any information to your lawyer.
By saying no while nodding he has given us the information we need without breaking the gag-order.
The headline is misleading and contradicts what the summary says. Mark has no such authority nor say. He's got no control over Linux. He uses the Linux kernel in Ubuntu and, rightfully, he spoke specifically about Ubuntu.
The Ubuntu founder did not say what the headline claims. I was really kind of curious as to why he'd say such a thing and then I realized the summary actually told the truth. That's disappointing Slashdot. Disappointing indeed. Then again, I haven't checked to see if the submitter was the one to insinuate that - they may also share culpability.
I was kind of annoyed until I read the summary (then I was annoyed for other reasons). I mean, hell, I'm a pretty happy Lubuntu user and even I know that Mark's authority and control ends with Ubuntu. I also know that Ubuntu hasn't the manpower nor the expertise to review every line of code. It seemed a rather bizarre claim for him to have made. Fortunately, he said no such thing. He's said some odd things before but nothing like that. The latest oddity was the mention of the name for the next version of Ubuntu. Yakity (x8) yak. Of course.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Theo Tso fixed it back in 2012 by just using it as an additional (but not sole) source of entropy:
https://git.kernel.org/cgit/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/commit/?id=c2557a303ab6712bb6e09447df828c557c710ac9