[breser]

I find it strange that the article says that Java uses /dev/urandom by default. When I've been having to configure Java to use /dev/./urandom for years to deal with the fact that it defaults to /dev/random and setting it to /dev/urandom doesn't work because the Java code treats the two as the same.

[0xdeadb00f]

Slightly tangential, but why doesn't Linux symlink /dev/random to /dev/urandom like OpenBSD does?

Wouldn't that stop issues like these (what's the benefit in keeping /dev/random the same)?

[Tomte]

Extreme backwards compatibility. An application might depend on the blocking behaviour (be it sensible or not). And since it's a change visible from user space, it won't be done (except in extreme circumstances).