Re: Ptrace hole / Linux 2.2.25

Stephan von Krawczynski
2003-03-23T09:50:13Z

On Fri, 21 Mar 2003 22:17:08 +0100
Pavel Machek <pavel@ucw.cz> wrote:

> Hi!
>
> > > Would it make sense to repackage 2.4.20 into something like 2.4.20-p1
> > > or 2.4.20.1 with only the critical stuff applied?
> >
> > There shouldn't be a huge need to rush 2.4.21 as-is, really. If you
> > want an immediate update, get the fix from your vendor.

Sorry Jeff,

this comment must obviously be flagged with a big community-buh. It is very
likely that most readers of LKML read/write here _not_ because they are
looking for a _vendor_ specific thing, but because they feel to a certain
extent as part of a linux-community and (partly) want to give something back
for the good things they got from it.
It is no hot news over here that linux does _not_ live because of 5 different
(or more?) "vendor"-kernels, but solely because there is _the_ official
kernel.org kernel (releases).
For me personally I must say there is nothing I care less about than a
vendor-kernel - not because I think they are doing a bad job _in general_, but
because they are expected to be _less_ tested than "official" releases.
My favourite vendor (which I won't name here) managed to create a kernel that
does not even completely boot on about 8 of 10 of my test-beds. And guess what:
replacing the patched-to-death vendor kernel with kernel.org release makes all
of them work (at least boot correctly).

So IMHO: if there is a-known-to-work patch for the discussed exploit it should
be released as _some_ (pre-)release for 2.4 quickly, and thanks must go to alan
for taking quick approach on 2.2.

--
Regards,
Stephan