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Comment by chris_wot | Hacker News Reader

So tl;dr - fixing a security bug is rarely the end of the story, fixing the root cause is far more important. And don’t piss off the users.

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If your security patch kills users' buggy processes or even crash their systems then you are a «bad security person». Please report the bad access first so users and developers of their software have time to fix the bug. Upgrades disabling users' software are a big no-no. After all security is meaningless for a non-working system.

Linus has been pounding on the bench saying "Don't Break Userspace" for over two decades now. This is really just another manifestation of that same policy. Some 'security' folk apparently believe they occupy a special place in which they are exempt from this policy. Linus is showing them they're wrong; evolving the kernel into a minefield in the name of security is not the way to world domination.

And I think a big part of Linus's point is that if you break userspace for security now people will be less likely to upgrade their kernels in the future.

So they'll be secure from a hypothetical possible bug today, and completely vulnerable to real demonstrated security exploits in the future.

I’m so glad that backwards thinking concepts like this are dominant, otherwise we might actually have secure software!

Think about it, an open-source OS is choosing backwards compatibility over security. This would have caused quite the stir in the 90’s Linux community.

Security is meaningless if your system doesn't work. Makes sense for me. Or your car is forbidden from starting after an upgrade because you might run over someone tonight. It's a trade-off.

They're choosing backwards compatibility over bad security (kill everything instead of reporting and fixing bugs). Applying duct tape everywhere instead of fixing things can hardly be desired.

And as a side note, backwards compatibility is what made windows succeed.

Do you want your system to kernel panic every time the security code gets a false positive about a problem? The security code is just as likely to have bugs as the software it is securing.

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