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>let's be specific here: where exactly is the memory-safe USB UVC driver you think Android should be shipping? I'm okay with Android shipping Linux. I have no

by tux3 2y ago

>let's be specific here: where exactly is the memory-safe USB UVC driver you think Android should be shipping? I'm okay with Android shipping Linux. I have no problem with the choices that were made in the past. Still, we are forced to observe yet again the problems caused by old parsers written in plain C. Most bugs are in new code, so one hopes that we will eventually run out of buffer overflows in 2008 UVC drivers. Without having to call for rewriting everything all at once. But if and when we have to write new code, let's not make the same mistake again. I reserve all my righteous indignation for people who do not learn from the mistakes of the past.

ajross 2y ago
Right, but what I'm saying is that people aren't writing that new code because no one wants to. Basically: If half the energy spent on righteous tut-tutting about Rust (or whatever) was given to writing memory-safe implementation of "boring" stuff like webcam drivers and not the sexy junk that ends up on HN, there'd be a lot less need for the irksome tut-tutting. Basically I think this says more about the psychology of the tut-tut set than it does development practice.
- tux3 2y ago
  It isn't that there is a shortage of developers willing to write code. No, the kernel has entirely too many developers submitting to relatively few maintainers. So I don't take the psychology point at all. We already have more developers than we can handle. The problem is elsewhere. We have another thread at the moment about opposition to Rust drivers in the kernel. Writing the boring code is, I think, the easy part. Getting it past the old guard is another fight entirely. And not always fought on technical grounds. For every unit of energy that is spent writing code, twice that amount will be drained in endless bickering about whether modernity shall be permitted. And till the barriers disappear, the flow of exhausting discourse will continue crashing against the immovable wall of how it used to be.
  - ajross 2y ago
    I'll have to be blunter: people who tut-tut about memory safety instead of spending their time working on rewriting "boring" software (USB video drivers in this case) in safe environments are a much, much bigger problem than the folks still trying to make C code work. Not only are you not fixing bugs, you're driving people away from the environments where those bugs still need to be fixed.
    - tux3 2y ago
      I'm sorry, I understood you the first time around. But I'm not sure you're applying your criticism homogeneously. Both sides in this argument are doing something which is not fixing bugs when they go online and write another reply, and of course they might think the other side is a much bigger problem. There is plenty of code being written regardless. Not all of it makes it upstream, and that's for a different set of reasons. Discussion is not an indication of whether people also write code, in fact. Nevermind the fact that it takes two people to waste time arguing instead of fixing bugs.

by tux3 2y ago

ajross 2y ago

Right, but what I'm saying is that people aren't writing that new code because no one wants to. Basically: If half the energy spent on righteous tut-tutting about Rust (or whatever) was given to writing memory-safe implementation of "boring" stuff like webcam drivers and not the sexy junk that ends up on HN, there'd be a lot less need for the irksome tut-tutting. Basically I think this says more about the psychology of the tut-tut set than it does development practice.

tux3 2y ago
It isn't that there is a shortage of developers willing to write code. No, the kernel has entirely too many developers submitting to relatively few maintainers. So I don't take the psychology point at all. We already have more developers than we can handle. The problem is elsewhere. We have another thread at the moment about opposition to Rust drivers in the kernel. Writing the boring code is, I think, the easy part. Getting it past the old guard is another fight entirely. And not always fought on technical grounds. For every unit of energy that is spent writing code, twice that amount will be drained in endless bickering about whether modernity shall be permitted. And till the barriers disappear, the flow of exhausting discourse will continue crashing against the immovable wall of how it used to be.
- ajross 2y ago
  I'll have to be blunter: people who tut-tut about memory safety instead of spending their time working on rewriting "boring" software (USB video drivers in this case) in safe environments are a much, much bigger problem than the folks still trying to make C code work. Not only are you not fixing bugs, you're driving people away from the environments where those bugs still need to be fixed.
  - tux3 2y ago
    I'm sorry, I understood you the first time around. But I'm not sure you're applying your criticism homogeneously. Both sides in this argument are doing something which is not fixing bugs when they go online and write another reply, and of course they might think the other side is a much bigger problem. There is plenty of code being written regardless. Not all of it makes it upstream, and that's for a different set of reasons. Discussion is not an indication of whether people also write code, in fact. Nevermind the fact that it takes two people to waste time arguing instead of fixing bugs.