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Having package maintainers touch any code, even to backport security fixes, is far from ideal. In 2006, a big security flaw was introduced into Debian's OpenSS

• ris 9y ago
  ...as I indeed mentioned. But we've got to remember that attitudes to security and understanding of subtleties around crypto code were very different a decade ago, the output from automated checking tools was trusted significantly more, and we're talking about OpenSSL, a project whose source is generally acknowledged to be full of Weird And Inadvisable Shit anyway. The example you're leaning on was basically a perfect storm that resulted in the worst possible scenario. On the other hand, package maintainers fix security issues on versions of packages the developers have stopped caring about every day of the week, and of course these never hit the headlines. And of course I'd never suggest that any package maintainer could ever know better than you. Though unfortunately such superior and unilateral attitudes are one of the things that maintainers are needed to protect against.
  • ris 9y ago
    ^ I didn't mean the parent comment to sound so personal at the end. Apologies.