Bonum Certa Men Certa

Michael Catanzaro Seems to be Missing the Point

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Oct 03, 2026

The Ostrich

Calling people you disagree with "Ostriches" is lazy name-calling

Michael Catanzaro is no longer "tracking newly-reported security issues" in GNOME (as of 2 days ago, the Red Hat catastrophe day). Catanzaro has just written two posts, one of them long and complete with detailed tables. He argues that slop bug reports are becoming a real issue (not only a growing number) and says or sort of insinuates they should be reported/filed/documented with CVEs ("How to Request a CVE"). It's a time-consuming human task. CVEs earned their notoriety for many reasons and some want to replace this system completely. They have legitimate reasons.

Catanzaro isn't too rude in my experience (although he was a bit crabby towards people I know). Here is where he and many other people at GNOME diverge (some wish to altogether ban not only slop but also people caught using slop to waste other people's time).

I've been writing software for over 30 years and I have a rough idea of the role played by frameworks/languages, bad architecture (including defective, faulty chips that cheat to fake speed/performance), bad programming, and classic multi-task environments (where several different programs run in tandem on the same CPU, same physical RAM etc.) so I am not some clueless 'knob-head'.

Bugs and their severity are all relative. Many of the bugs we hear of all the time assume a multi-tenanted environment (different users presumed hostile towards one another), a connected (to the outside world) unit/s, rogue inputs (like badly-formed, malicious, rogue media files crafted to cause harm), and all sorts of "shared servers" or "cloud" (what I've long compared to public toilets in the "sanitation" sense).

Suppose you write a program that runs locally on a machine (some cheap SBC) where you're the sole human user. Suppose this program takes as input something from a known (and trusted) Web/Net address - for some reason or another. What can possibly go wrong? Not much.

But now they sell us programs as "containers", hosts/hardware as "clouds", small software as "apps" (from centralised stores connected to MAGA and the NSA), pages as "webapps" (where no JavaScript is needed to attain the base functionality) and so on.

Suddenly even little crease or defect gets magnified and there's a cascade or escalation, wherein some tiny buffer overrun/overflow can result in something much worse than a pesky crash.

Slop machines aren't good at finding meaningful bugs (we amassed many citations that reinforce this assertion; no "ostriches") but at generating many candidates thereof. Like fuzzers, which have existed and have been used for decades, they generate a mountain of noise (with many needles presumed to be locatable inside the heap). If someone wishes to waste (or "invest") one's time sorting out false positives in a fast-growing queue, then good luck.

Catanzaro found himself in a position of having to do this (shockingly, he was the only one in GNOME doing so). Now he's out, either burned out or burned by IBM (Red Hat). █


Image source: The Ostrich


Other Recent Techrights' Posts

Intercontinental Brigading - Part XI - Losing Over a Million Pounds (Borrowed Money) to Try to Silence Critics of Restricted Boot With Microsoft-Controlled "Certificates"
Garrett is also very jealous of Daniel Pocock
Linux Kernel Needs Diversity and Diversity of Good Code, Not LLM Slop
Linux (and Linus) are kicking a can down the road
Techrights Was Right About a Fake Security Model Built Around Lies or Built Upon Trust in "Certificates" and "Authorities" (like Microsoft)
We have begun to amass some media reports and blog posts from technical sites
 
Links 22/10/2026: "Software Developers Have Been Promoted Into Incompetence"
Links for the day
Links 22/10/2026: eBay to Lay Off a Tenth of Staff (Again), Node.js and PHP Security Crises, Climate News
Links for the day
Red Hat Layoffs Still Going on This Week (Whilst IBM's Debt Grows in Spite of Mass Layoffs)
IBM is bluffing/cheating the shareholders again
IBM's Debt Continues to Increase While the Company Rapidly Shrinks
This is what a dying company looks like
Microsoft Shrinks Every Year
Microsoft will try to spin or twist this as "efficiency"
Gemini Links 22/10/2026: Holiday Inn and Emacs
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 21, 2026
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 21, 2026
Windows Monopoly is No Longer Sustainable (the Case of Oceania)
This is why Microsoft layoffs are happening all the time
Some Downtime Possible Shortly (Router Work)
We don't use PHP in the site anymore
Mass Layoffs at Microsoft This Week and/or Next Week
Cannot pull a bunny out of some hat
With Its Future on the Line, EPO Management (Dictatorship) Resorts to Further Escalations to Fake 'Production' and Curtail Industrial Actions
It's clear that with a yearlong campaign of industrial actions - including strikes - Campinos cannot save face anymore
Gemini Links 21/10/2026: Summer Day in Tokyo (30c in Late October) and Whole Food for the Whole World
Links for the day
Links 21/10/2026: "Zelensky Took the Gloves Off This Time With Convicted Felon" and "Cellebrite iPhone Radio Zero-Day"
Links for the day
Reuters is Becoming Slop, Not a News Agency (Treat Reports From Reuters Sceptically)
In their own words
Disclosure/s Crisis at The Register MS (Promoting a Ponzi Scheme for Money)
So now they sell several schemes/scams at the same time, not limited to the slop
Links 21/10/2026: "The Tragic Death of the Republican Party" and "No War But Data Center War"
Links for the day
Internet Relay Chat Still Growing
The numbers go up, not down [...] Don't believe the doomers
Intercontinental Brigading - Part X - American Back Doors Inside Our Computers, With Transatlantic Swatting Against Critics Thrown 'Into the Mix'
"If your Windows PC's Secure Boot certificates are out of date, your system is vulnerable to malware like rootkits."
Gemini Links 21/10/2026: A Walk Through Amsterdam and Pythagorean Theorem
Links for the day
More Mass Layoffs at Microsoft Weeks From Now, Then Again Months From Now
Microsoft's crisis is not limited to XBox
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 20, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 20, 2026
Gemini Links 20/10/2026: The Brothers Who Fought Mussolini and a Dying Main Laptop
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Has Almost Zero Litigation Clients This Year (in the Area They Specialise in)
The silence on the financial front, combined with the lack of new clients, is deafening
Where to Celebrate the 20-Year Anniversary
let us know in IRC
Cheapening of the Workforce at IBM and Microsoft, Typically Without Even Announcing Any Layoffs
from leadership to compelled "retirement"
Help Us Improve Techrights
The site relies on teamwork in a growing community; even readers are part of it
Links 20/10/2026: $100 Million ICE “Intelligence” Program and France Riots
Links for the day
Gemini Links 20/10/2026: GAFAM GCP Outage in the UK and New Oddμ Release
Links for the day
Articles in The Register MS Composed by Employees of the Companies They're About
The Register MS is the place to be
Intercontinental Brigading - Part IX - Swatting is Not Funny, Swatting is a Murder Attempt
“Swatting is not harmless. It is a serious crime that can lead to dangerous situations and divert law enforcement away from someone facing an actual emergency. What callers may believe to be a ‘joke’ actually risks the public safety of our communities and can carry lifelong consequences for those responsible”
Links 20/10/2026: Facebook Scraping and Plagiarising News Sites, Copyright Act Turns 50
Links for the day
Microsoft's XBox Leadership and Strategy is Slop
XBox sales are already worst in the entire history of XBox
81% Voted in Favour of EPO Strikes Until End of This Year
Who's in the line of succession at EPO?
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 19, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, October 19, 2026
Gemini Links 20/10/2026: Old Movies, Bandera Hike, and Mongolian
Links for the day