Quotes of the week [LWN.net]

Now, the thing you should take away from this is: kernel people have cool toys, and CPU's that are faster than what you have. Nyaah, nyaah.

-- Linus Torvalds

Part of the problem I suspect is that the AV folks have managed to get CIO's believe that all computer systems need to have anti-virus software, of the same design that is needed for DOS/Windows systems. This state of delusion is so bad that apparently some AV engineers aren't even willing to reason from first principles what is necessary or not to maintain a secure system.

And arguably, if the goal is security theater, much like the security lines in airports, perhaps it doesn't matter. If there are silly CIO's that are willing to pay for such a thing, regardless of whether or not it is actually *necessary* to maintain security, one school of capitalism would say it doesn't matter if it actually provides any functional value or not.

On the other hand, it seems pretty clear there are plenty of LKML developers who aren't buying it. :-)

-- Ted Ts'o

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capitalism

Posted Aug 9, 2008 14:48 UTC (Sat) by qu1j0t3 (guest, #25786) [Link]

one school of capitalism would say it doesn't matter if it actually provides any functional value or not.

The benighted members of that school should thoroughly approve of spam, fake goods, and phenomena like this.

capitalism

Posted Aug 14, 2008 8:18 UTC (Thu) by Janne (guest, #40891) [Link]

Spam is harmful and therefore bad, but I fail to see the problem with the "I am rich"-app. Is
it stupid? Yes. Is it of no practical value? Sure! Is it a scam or harmful? No. The person who
bought it by mistake has only one person to blame for the situation: himself. The description
of the app was accurate, the price was clearly visible, there was zero indication anywhere
that it was a "joke".

"I am rich" is basically electronic equivalent to expensive jewelry. Jewelry has no real
practical purpose either, and it's often used to show off your wealth.

capitalism

Posted Aug 14, 2008 16:39 UTC (Thu) by pellucide (guest, #4498) [Link]

May I say "electronic jewelry".