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The inventor of Linux is furious at Intel
Linus Torvalds, the inventor and founder of the Linux operating system, is not known for holding back strong opinions he has about computers, and he is now one of the loudest voices critical of Intel's handling of "Meltdown," the flaw revealed Wednesday that could enable an attacker to steal confidential information including passwords.
"I think somebody inside of Intel needs to really take a long hard look at their CPU's, and actually admit that they have issues instead of writing PR blurbs that say that everything works as designed," Torvalds wrote in a sharply worded email sent to a Linux list on Wednesday.
"Or is Intel basically saying 'we are committed to selling you shit forever and ever, and never fixing anything'?" Torvalds continued.
Torvalds, one the world's best-known programmers, is still deeply involved on a day-to-day basis with Linux, a free and open-source operating system he first developed in 1991.
Though some people use Linux as an alternative to Windows or macOS, its best uses are in the cloud: The majority of servers and supercomputers run a Linux variant.
Meltdown and the related Spectre issue, both revealed Wednesday, affect pretty much every Intel processor — not only the ones that power your laptop, most likely running Windows, but also the chips used in Linux servers running the cloud and your favorite websites.
Intel said it was working with both rivals and partners on a fix for the issue. Spectre also affects AMD and processors based on ARM, but it is harder to execute than Meltdown, which is focused on Intel processors.
Tux, the Linux mascot.
The two issues take advantage of weird aspects of how kernels, or cores, of operating systems interact and use processors.
Torvalds is in charge of Linux's kernel, so he has some authority on the issue — and he doesn't like what Intel has been saying. Because Linux is open-source and Torvalds doesn't work for a big company like Google or Microsoft that partners with Intel, he's free to give his unvarnished opinion.
A lot of his ire seems to be geared to the impression that a fix for these issues is likely to cause computers running on Intel processors to run slower — by as much as 30%, according to some analyst estimates. At one point, he muses that processors designed by ARM, an Intel rival, could be a superior option for Linux developers.
Though Torvalds is one of the highest-profile technical voices criticizing Intel, he is not the only one dissatisfied with its handling of the issue.
