From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Dec 12 09:14:43 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id JAA05019 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:14:43 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from neon.transmeta.com (neon-best.transmeta.com [206.184.214.10]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id JAA05007 for ; Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:14:24 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from torvalds@transmeta.com) Received: from gold-1.transmeta.com (mailhost.transmeta.com [10.1.1.79]) by neon.transmeta.com (8.8.5/8.8.4) with ESMTP id JAA06623; Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:06:17 -0800 Received: from penguin.transmeta.com (torvalds@penguin.transmeta.com [10.1.2.202]) by gold-1.transmeta.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA17190; Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:12:41 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost (torvalds@localhost) by penguin.transmeta.com (8.8.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id JAA11384; Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:12:40 -0800 X-Authentication-Warning: penguin.transmeta.com: torvalds owned process doing -bs Date: Fri, 12 Dec 1997 09:12:40 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: David Greenman cc: John Kelly , hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: (fwd) Re: F00F bug *fixed* in 2.0.x kernels In-Reply-To: <199712120608.WAA01136@implode.root.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Thu, 11 Dec 1997, David Greenman wrote: > On 8 Dec 1997 23:11:24 GMT, in comp.os.linux.development.system > torvalds@transmeta.com (Linus Torvalds) wrote: > > > >If they are indeed still using that fix, they are a sorry lot of > >incompetent idiots. > > The fix that Linus is refering to is one of several that were evaluated > and rejected. The fix that we finally adopted in FreeBSD is the one that > involves making the IDT to read-only and catching the write fault that > occurs. Good. And I think I should clarify my position a bit - people did obviously not find my statement about "sorry lot of incompetent idiots" to go over well in some circles. Strange ;) Anyway, first I'd like to point out the "if .. indeed" clause of that part, just in case somebody missed it. I was personally involved with that particular fix, primarily as the one who de-bunked it. I was possibly not the only one, but I was at least one of the ones who spent time chasing down intel people and actually writing a test program that conclusively showed that the fix was bogus. I suspect that I was the first one to show it to be bogus. So imagine _my_ reaction when I am told by a third party that FreeBSD is still using the fix that I spent time _proving_ was wrong. In that context, "sorry lot of incompetent idiots" probably sounds a lot more understandable. Because a sorry lot you would have been. I'm happy that the third party was confused, but he had enough knowledge of the fix existing in the first place that I just assumed that he was right. Sorry for any ruffled feathers, and I guess I should have checked, but I don't think my reaction was completely unreasonable. Linus