Re: [RFC] Small PCI core patch

Jon Smirl
2005-11-22T03:01:14Z

On 11/21/05, Benjamin Herrenschmidt <benh@kernel.crashing.org> wrote:
> But the real reasons are elsewhere anyway. They don't wnat to opensource
> because they don't want to open the gazillion security holes in their
> stuff (afaik, the binary drivers make absolutely no verification of the
> command streams passed from userland, you can make the card do whatever
> you want from any user context, including arbitrary DMA to/from system
> memory), the various comments & workarounds for HW bugs that aren't
> supposed to exist and might make some customers want to throw the cards
> back at them, the disgusting pile of smelly windows-originated library
> they link in and wrap all over the place to make linux look like NT,
> etc...

Build some root exploits using their drivers and start sending them to
LKML. The resulting bad PR should fix their security holes quick
enough. Who knows, maybe the heat will be hot enough for them to go
open source.

--
Jon Smirl
jonsmirl@gmail.com