Re: Coding style - a non-issue

Alexander Viro
2001-12-01T05:15:25Z

On Fri, 30 Nov 2001, Mike Fedyk wrote:

> This is Linux-Kernel. Each developer is on their own on how they pay the
> their bills. The question is... Why not accept a *driver* that *works* but
> the source doesn't look so good?

Because this "works" may very well include exploitable buffer overruns in
kernel mode. I had seen that - ioctl() assuming that nobody would pass
it deliberately incorrect arguments and doing something like
copy_from_user(&foo, arg, sizeof(foo));
copy_from_user(bar, foo.addr, foo.len);

The problem being, seeing what really happens required half an hour of
wading through the shitload of #defines. _After_ seeing copy_from_user()
in a macro during greap over the tree - that's what had triggered the
further search.

> What really needs to happen...
>
> Accept the driver, but also accept future submissions that *only* clean up
> the comments. It has been said that patches with comments and without code
> have been notoriously droped.

Commented pile of shit is still nothing but a pile of shit. If you comment
Netscape to hell and back it will still remain a festering dungpile. Same
for NT, GNOME, yodda, yodda...