Linus Torvalds Lambasts Open Source Programmers over Insecure Code

Linus Torvalds's latest rant underscores the high expectations the Linux developer places on open source programmers—as well the importance of security for Linux kernel code.

Torvalds is the unofficial "benevolent dictator" of the Linux kernel project. That means he gets to decide which code contributions go into the kernel, and which ones land in the reject pile.

On Oct. 28, open source coders whose work did not meet Torvalds's expectations faced an angry rant. "Christ people," Torvalds wrote about the code. "This is just sh*t."

He went on to call the coders "just incompetent and out to lunch."

What made Torvalds so angry? He believed the code could have been written more efficiently. It could have been easier for other programmers to understand and would run better through a compiler, the program that translates human-readable code into the binaries that computers understand.

Torvalds posted his own substitution for the code in question and suggested that the programmers should have written it his way.

Torvalds has a history of lashing out against people with whom he disagrees. It stretches back to 1991, when he famously flamed Andrew Tanenbaum—whose Minix operating system he later described as a series of "brain-damages." No doubt this latest criticism of fellow open source coders will go down as another example of Torvalds's confrontational personality.

But Torvalds may also have been acting strategically during this latest rant. "I want to make it clear to *everybody* that code like this is completely unacceptable," he wrote, suggesting that his goal was to send a message to all Linux programmers, not just vent his anger at particular ones.

Torvalds also used the incident as an opportunity to highlight the security concerns that arise from poorly written code. Those are issues dear to open source programmers' hearts in an age when enterprises are finally taking software security seriously, and demanding top-notch performance from their code in this regard. Lambasting open source programmers who write insecure code thus helps Linux's image.