[PATCH] Documentation/process: Add Researcher Guidelines

Kees Cook
2022-02-24T00:14:11Z

As a follow-up to the UMN incident[1], the TAB took the responsibility
to document Researcher Guidelines so there would be a common place to
point for describing our expectations as a developer community.

Document best practices researchers should follow to participate
successfully with the Linux developer community.

[1] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/202105051005.49BFABCE@keescook/

Co-developed-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Signed-off-by: Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>
Co-developed-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Signed-off-by: Jonathan Corbet <corbet@lwn.net>
Co-developed-by: Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@upsilon.cc>
Signed-off-by: Stefano Zacchiroli <zack@upsilon.cc>
Co-developed-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Signed-off-by: Steven Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Acked-by: Steve Rostedt <rostedt@goodmis.org>
Acked-by: Laura Abbott <labbott@kernel.org>
Reviewed-by: Julia Lawall <julia.lawall@inria.fr>
Reviewed-by: Wenwen Wang <wenwen@cs.uga.edu>
Signed-off-by: Kees Cook <keescook@chromium.org>
---
Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst | 1 +
.../admin-guide/researcher-guidelines.rst | 141 ++++++++++++++++++
2 files changed, 142 insertions(+)
create mode 100644 Documentation/admin-guide/researcher-guidelines.rst

diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
index 1bedab498104..7fff0730204d 100644
--- a/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/index.rst
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ problems and bugs in particular.
:maxdepth: 1

reporting-issues
+ researcher-guidelines
security-bugs
bug-hunting
bug-bisect
diff --git a/Documentation/admin-guide/researcher-guidelines.rst b/Documentation/admin-guide/researcher-guidelines.rst
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..993f32d1166c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Documentation/admin-guide/researcher-guidelines.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
+.. SPDX-License-Identifier: GPL-2.0
+
+.. _researcher_guidelines:
+
+Researcher Guidelines
++++++++++++++++++++++
+
+The Linux kernel community welcomes transparent research on the Linux
+kernel, the activities involved in producing it, and any other byproducts
+of its development. Linux benefits greatly from this kind of research, and
+most aspects of Linux are driven by research in one form or another.
+
+The community greatly appreciates if researchers can share preliminary
+findings before making their results public, especially if such research
+involves security. Getting involved early helps both improve the quality
+of research and ability for Linux to improve from it. In any case,
+sharing open access copies of the published research with the community
+is recommended.
+
+This document seeks to clarify what the Linux kernel community considers
+acceptable and non-acceptable practices when conducting such research. At
+the very least, such research and related activities should follow
+standard research ethics rules. For more background on research ethics
+generally, ethics in technology, and research of developer communities
+in particular, see:
+
+* `History of Research Ethics <https://www.unlv.edu/research/ORI-HSR/history-ethics>`_
+* `IEEE Ethics <https://www.ieee.org/about/ethics/index.html>`_
+* `Developer and Researcher Views on the Ethics of Experiments on
+ Open-Source Projects <https://arxiv.org/pdf/2112.13217.pdf>`_
+
+The Linux kernel community expects that everyone interacting with the
+project is participating in good faith to make Linux better. Research on
+any publicly-available artifact (including, but not limited to source
+code) produced by the Linux kernel community is welcome, though research
+on developers must be distinctly opt-in.
+
+Passive research that is based entirely on publicly available sources,
+including posts to public mailing lists and commits to public
+repositories, is clearly permissible. Though, as with any research,
+standard ethics must still be followed.
+
+Active research on developer behavior, however, must be done with the
+explicit agreement of, and full disclosure to, the individual developers
+involved. Developers cannot be interacted with/experimented on without
+consent; this, too, is standard research ethics.
+
+To help clarify: sending patches to developers *is* interacting
+with them, but they have already consented to receiving *good faith
+contributions*. Sending intentionally flawed/vulnerable patches or
+contributing misleading information to discussions is not consented
+to. Such communication can be damaging to the developer (e.g. draining
+time, effort, and morale) and damaging to the project by eroding
+the entire developer community's trust in the contributor (and the
+contributor's organization as a whole), undermining efforts to provide
+constructive feedback to contributors, and putting end users at risk of
+software flaws.
+
+Participation in the development of Linux itself by researchers, as
+with anyone, is welcomed and encouraged. Research into Linux code is
+a common practice, especially when it comes to developing or running
+analysis tools that produce actionable results.
+
+When engaging with the developer community, sending a patch has
+traditionally been the best way to make an impact. Linux already has
+plenty of known bugs -- what's much more helpful is having vetted fixes.
+Before contributing, carefully read the documentation on
+:doc:`submitting patches <../process/submitting-patches>`,
+:doc:`reporting issues <reporting-issues>`, and
+:doc:`handling serious flaws <security-bugs>`. Send a patch (including
+a commit log with all the details listed below), and follow up on any
+feedback from other developers.
+
+When sending patches produced from research, the commit logs should
+contain at least the following details, so that developers have
+appropriate context for understanding the contribution. Answer:
+
+* What is the specific problem that has been found?
+* How could the problem be reached on a running system?
+* What effect would encountering the problem have on the system?
+* How was the problem found? Specifically include details about any
+ testing, static or dynamic analysis programs, and any other tools or
+ methods used to perform the work.
+* Which version of Linux was the problem was found on? Using the most
+ recent release or a recent :doc:`linux-next branch <../process/howto>`
+ is strongly preferred.
+* What was changed to fix the problem, and why it is believed to be correct?
+* How was the change build tested and run-time tested?
+* What prior commit does this change fix? This should go in a "Fixes:"
+ tag as the documentation describes.
+* Who else has reviewed this patch? This should go in appropriate
+ "Reviewed-by:" tags; see below.
+
+For example::
+
+ From: Author <author@email>
+ Subject: [PATCH] drivers/foo_bar: Add missing kfree()
+
+ The error path in foo_bar driver does not correctly free the allocated
+ struct foo_bar_info. This can happen if the attached foo_bar device
+ rejects the initialization packets sent during foo_bar_probe(). This
+ would result in a 64 byte slab memory leak once per device attach,
+ wasting memory resources over time.
+
+ This flaw was found using an experimental static analysis tool we are
+ developing, LeakMagic[1], which reported the following warning when
+ analyzing the v5.15 kernel release:
+
+ path/to/foo_bar.c:187: missing kfree() call?
+
+ Add the missing kfree() to the error path. No other references to
+ this memory exist outside the probe function, so this is the only
+ place it can be freed.
+
+ x86_64 and arm64 defconfig builds with CONFIG_FOO_BAR=y using GCC
+ 11.2 show no new warnings, and LeakMagic no longer warns about this
+ code path. As we don't have a FooBar device to test with, no runtime
+ testing was able to be performed.
+
+ [1] https://url/to/leakmagic/details
+
+ Reported-by: Researcher <researcher@email>
+ Fixes: aaaabbbbccccdddd ("Introduce support for FooBar")
+ Signed-off-by: Author <author@email>
+ Reviewed-by: Reviewer <reviewer@email>
+
+If you are a first time contributor it is recommended that the patch
+itself be vetted by others privately before being posted to public lists.
+(This is required if you have been explicitly told your patches need
+more careful internal review.) These people are expected to have their
+"Reviewed-by" tag included in the resulting patch. Finding another
+developer familiar with Linux contribution, especially within your own
+organization, and having them help with reviews before sending them to
+the public mailing lists tends to significantly improve the quality of the
+resulting patches, and there by reduces the burden on other developers.
+
+If no one can be found to internally review patches and you need
+help finding such a person, or if you have any other questions
+related to this document and the developer community's expectations,
+please reach out to the private Technical Advisory Board mailing list:
+<tech-board@lists.linux-foundation.org>.
--
2.30.2