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Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2001 11:13:06 +1100
From: Rusty Russell <rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
To: Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu>
Cc: mfedyk@matchmail.com, hps@intermeta.de, lm@bitmover.com,
        jgarzik@mandrakesoft.com, linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Coding style - a non-issue
Message-Id: <20011206111306.6ce4039e.rusty@rustcorp.com.au>
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On Sat, 1 Dec 2001 00:14:54 -0500 (EST)
Alexander Viro <viro@math.psu.edu> wrote:

> 
> 
> 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

And: bad code spreads.  Anyone who has done infrastructure change in the
kernel sees this: people copy (presumed) working code.

Hence I now lean towards "change EVERYTHING" rather than "wrap old source, add
new", and "fix even if not broken", eg. my "set_bit needs a long" patch which
also changed x86-specific code (where it doesn't matter).

Cheers,
Rusty.
-- 
  Anyone who quotes me is an idiot. -- Rusty Russell.
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