Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10

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To: Linus Torvalds <torvalds@...>
Cc: Greg KH <greg@...>, Andrew Morton <akpm@...>, <linux-kernel@...>, <stable@...>
Date: Tuesday, July 15, 2008 - 8:04 pm

On 15 Jul 2008 at 16:28, Linus Torvalds wrote:


oh, we're back to that. i told you that already, here it is again (just
quoting myself back):

  when you fix a bug, the commit describes what it fixes without omitting
  anything relevant. when you fix a security bug, its commit doesn't say
  what it fixes (not even that it's a security fix, never mind actual
  impact information), that is, you omit relevant information (based on
  some ill-conceived argument that i deconstructed at the beginning). in
  other words, you're *not* treating security bugs as normal bugs. for
  all intents and purposes, you cover them up. i *wish* you did treat
  them as normal bugs however.

we went through this and you yourself said that security bugs are *not*
treated as normal bugs because you do omit relevant information from such
commits whereas you do *not* omit relevant information from normal commits.
for security bugs the fact that they fix a security issue is relevant
information.


repeating the same thing doesn't make the self-contradiction above go
away. bugs are properly described in the commits, security bugs aren't
(you said so yourself), therefore they can't be of the same category.

what you're still trying to justify is why you are covering up security
bugs, plain and simple.


why would people think that unmarked bugfixes are less important? who are
you to make that judgement for them anyway? the importance of bugs is
*orthogonal* to their classification (security, etc). it's up to the people
and their decision making processes to deal with that. all you should do
is help them by not withholding relevant information. in case it wasn't
clear, i'm not talking about just about any person like my grandma, but
people whose work involves following kernel development, who can use all
the extra information to make judgement calls about what to prioritize.
they're certainly not dumb and would not think that only commits marked
as such are security related.


you have yet to prove why it's pointless. the above attempt failed to do so.


it's not a myth, it's called reality. a bugfix that gets my pc speaker beep
again is very different from a fix that stops the tcp/ip stack sending out
random kernel memory to the net (just made them up, before anyone starts
looking). you're desperately trying to ignore the importance of security
bugs but you're failing. the world has decided that security bugs *are*
important and deserve special attention. and it's not as if you had to do
any extra work, you already have the information, you should just not
*withhold* it.


'importance' is not a big grey goo that applies equally to all fixes. you
want to make it appear so, but that doesn't make it so.


why does it make people think that? did you ask them? what if you told them
as i suggested (and you conveniently skipped) what to expect? do you think
people dealing with kernel maintenance at companies, distros, etc are that
dumb?

cheers,
  PaX Team

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Messages in current thread:
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 4:18 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 4:23 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 4:42 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 5:18 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Rafael C. de Almeida, (Thu Jul 17, 3:19 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Thu Jul 17, 3:59 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 5:26 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 6:08 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 7:28 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 8:04 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 8:24 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 8:56 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 9:08 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 9:23 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Tue Jul 15, 8:00 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Theodore Tso, (Tue Jul 15, 9:08 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Tue Jul 15, 9:53 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Casey Schaufler, (Tue Jul 15, 11:27 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 5:33 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Theodore Tso, (Wed Jul 16, 9:21 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 11:16 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Wed Jul 16, 12:13 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Casey Schaufler, (Wed Jul 16, 1:26 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Wed Jul 16, 12:21 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Wed Jul 16, 1:02 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Wed Jul 16, 1:13 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 10:02 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Tue Jul 15, 10:36 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Wed Jul 16, 12:07 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Wed Jul 16, 12:16 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Tue Jul 15, 9:30 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 8:16 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Tue Jul 15, 8:38 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 8:51 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Tue Jul 15, 9:10 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Greg KH, (Tue Jul 15, 11:13 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 5:01 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Greg KH, (Wed Jul 16, 10:43 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 11:43 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Greg KH, (Wed Jul 16, 12:29 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 1:25 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Mike Galbraith, (Wed Jul 16, 11:43 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Theodore Tso, (Wed Jul 16, 2:08 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 3:09 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Gabor Gombas, (Wed Jul 16, 5:35 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 6:04 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Linus Torvalds, (Tue Jul 15, 9:41 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 5:49 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, David Miller, (Wed Jul 16, 6:08 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 6:23 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, David Miller, (Wed Jul 16, 6:31 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 6:51 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, David Miller, (Wed Jul 16, 7:04 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, , (Wed Jul 16, 7:52 am)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Tiago Assumpcao, (Tue Jul 15, 10:24 pm)
Re: [stable] Linux 2.6.25.10, Theodore Tso, (Tue Jul 15, 11:11 pm)