From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Nov 14 04:36:26 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) id EAA24836 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 14 Nov 1997 04:36:26 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-hackers) Received: from dyson.iquest.net (dyson.iquest.net [198.70.144.127]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.7/8.8.7) with ESMTP id EAA24831 for ; Fri, 14 Nov 1997 04:36:23 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from toor@dyson.iquest.net) Received: (from root@localhost) by dyson.iquest.net (8.8.7/8.8.5) id HAA00884; Fri, 14 Nov 1997 07:36:10 -0500 (EST) From: "John S. Dyson" Message-Id: <199711141236.HAA00884@dyson.iquest.net> Subject: Re: Pentium lockup fix in FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <199711140710.XAA29918@implode.root.com> from David Greenman at "Nov 13, 97 11:10:23 pm" To: dg@root.com Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 07:36:10 -0500 (EST) Cc: henrich@crh.cl.msu.edu, freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Reply-To: dyson@FreeBSD.ORG X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4ME+ PL31 (25)] MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk David Greenman said: > > With above said, I need to make one more important point. I have absolutely > no problem with people coming up with a workaround for this, no matter how > disgusting, if it does the job and doesn't harm people further. I fully > support them making such a workaround available to anyone who wants it. > HOWEVER, I do strongly object to the notion that such a hack should be brought > into the FreeBSD source code repository at the first sign of life. Doing so > would be a poor mode of operation in general and we must avoid this if we > stand any chance of maintaining the high quality of our source tree. This > is a policy issue that I believe enjoys full support of the entire FreeBSD > core team. > Yes. I also greatly respect/appreciate the work that people have done to try to create a fix. I think that we should not tell people that we have fixed the problem, only to leave a more subtile hole in the system for some hacker to take advantage of, or perhaps destablize the system in some way that none of us will easily understand. It is not a good idea to tell an ISP, for example, that we have fixed the problem, when we really have not. Remember, we will likely have to change both -stable and -current, and we need to be especially careful with -stable in representing the fix status. I think that we all can understand the panic (no pun) that people might feel about this problem. -- John dyson@freebsd.org jdyson@nc.com