*BSD News Article 73794


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From: "John S. Dyson" <toor@dyson.iquest.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.networking,comp.unix.bsd.netbsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
Subject: Re: TCP latency
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 1996 00:45:10 -0500
Organization: John S. Dyson's home machine
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Erik Corry wrote:
> 
>
> : > >
> : > >I think that was a kind-of cute situation.  We decided NOT
> : > >to special case the syscall that Larry uses for the
> : > >null-syscall case.
> : >
>
> I think what John wrote above can only be interpreted as a complaint
> that Linux has a special case for the null syscall.
>
I followed up with a description of what the situation was.  It was
MY situation.  It was not Linus's.  Where is there an implication
that it had anything to do with Linus, and why would I think that
anything that has to do with Linus is 'cute'?  I happen to
think that the demon is 'cute', but not Linus :-).  This thing has
turned totally absurd.  I see that it was an excuse to call me the
worst thing that I can be called.

> I certainly
> interpreted it that way, so did Linus, and so did most people
> reading the message. If nobody special-cased the null syscall, why
> bring it up at all.
> 
Rather than calling me a liar, he should have confronted me.  I do
publically apologize and make retractions, because my integrity is
much more important than my ego.  My worst fault in these threads is
that I demand integrity from others, and am not compromizing. My
response to Linus after his/your misinterpretation would not have
even had to have been a retraction, but a clarification.  The fault
here is in the response to my statement, not my statement itself.

It was not meant as a sly statement and IN NO WAY did I claim that
Linux is doing anything specifically to make the benchmark only run
quickly.  I do believe that making the benchmark run quickly doesn't
necessarily make the system run faster in the general case, given
a choice between working on that and other things.  Please reread
my comment on "TCP latency (...lucid...)."

I did go ballistic, and the LIAR statement was not called for.  That
is a complaint of last resort.  If it was me, and you have seen
my responses to comments like that, I would have made a very strong
claim that no such 'trick' was done in my code, and asked what the
motivation for the comment was.  Judgement should only come after
all of the facts are heard, especially if the judgement would
include such a condemning statement as LIAR.  I would suggest that
the statement (the allusion that I made about what I thought about
doing, and the thought that the effect of making it run faster
would be about the same as faking it) had little integrity, and
please give me some information to back up the claim. Calling me
a LIAR eliminates my ability to discuss an issue, since there
is no value in listening to a LIAR, other than hearing lies.

I would answer precisely the same as what I said in the "TCP latency
(...lucid...)" response.  My statement is simply the truth.  But,
I guess since I am now a LIAR, you cannot believe me :-(.  I guess
that it isn't worth listening to my skepticism about benchmark
claims and results also.  I kind of see the reason for calling me
a LIAR now...  (See, this is my suspicous position, with much more
evidence than my allusion to a thought that went through MY head,
I did not claim that Linus even thought of it.)

BTW, I found out where alot of confusion was coming in... There were
TWO threads going on, and the TCP latency thread did not have the
errant claims by Linus that I was complaining about :-(.

John