Again, I am pretty sure that they were disclosed the details. This however is very different from being able to commit patches on the day of the disclosure. For one, neither Linus nor Greg are actually writing the code.
The problem here was that discussion was confined within company barriers (with small occasional exceptions) until last Wednesday. Linux thrives because it is based on reaching consensus among all stakeholders, and not being able to discuss the approach to take with respect to Spectre directly resulted in chaos.
I am very happy with the work that we at Red Hat did on this project (though of course not perfect in any way!) and I am proud that our articles are published openly and are being widely shared among the Linux user community at large. However, I certainly would have preferred to work together with all other vendors on a common solution before. But unfortunately, even if (as is the case with Red Hat) upper management is extremely supportive of upstream collaboration, you do what you can.
The problem here was that discussion was confined within company barriers (with small occasional exceptions) until last Wednesday. Linux thrives because it is based on reaching consensus among all stakeholders, and not being able to discuss the approach to take with respect to Spectre directly resulted in chaos.
I am very happy with the work that we at Red Hat did on this project (though of course not perfect in any way!) and I am proud that our articles are published openly and are being widely shared among the Linux user community at large. However, I certainly would have preferred to work together with all other vendors on a common solution before. But unfortunately, even if (as is the case with Red Hat) upper management is extremely supportive of upstream collaboration, you do what you can.