Linux Stops Reverting Most University of Minnesota Patches, Admits Good Faith

LWN has a very good chance of replacing what has been lost as a result of the discovery of University of Minnesota researchers intentionally inserting buggy code into the Linux kernel:

The writing of a paper in this research [PDF] is now no longer the instant reason for the current events; instead, it has become the posting of a buggy patch originating from an experimental static-evaluation device run via the means of some other developer at UMN. That led builders within the kernel network to suspect that the attempt to post deliberately malicious patches was nonetheless ongoing. Since then, it has become obvious that this isn’t always the case; however, by the point the whole tale had become clear, the dialogue was already going for walks at complete speed.

The vintage pronouncing nonetheless holds true: one needs to no longer attribute to malice that which may be effectively defined via means of incompetence.

On April 22, a brief statement was issued by the Linux Foundation technical advisory board (TAB), stating that, among other things, the current patches were submitted in good faith.

Meanwhile, the Linux Foundation and the TAB sent a letter to the UMN researchers outlining how the situation should be addressed; that letter is no longer publicly available, but ZDNet appears to have received a copy from somewhere.Among different matters, the letter requested a full disclosure of the buggies patches dispatched as a part of the UMN task and the withdrawal of the paper on account of these paintings.

In response, the UMN researchers published an open letter apologizing to the network, accompanied some days later by a precis of the paintings they did [PDF] as a part of the “hypocrite commits” task. Five patches were submitted from sock puppet accounts globally; however, one of these became a standard computer virus restore that was sent from the incorrect account by mistake.One of the final four was an attempt to insert a computer virus that became buggy, so the patch became truly valid; the other three (1, 2, and 3) contained actual insects. None of these three had been time-honored by maintainers, despite the fact that the reasons for rejection were no longer always the insects in question.

The paper itself has been withdrawn and can no longer be offered in May as planned.

One of the primary matters that befell while this entire affair exploded was the posting via means of Greg Kroah-Hartman of a 190-element patch collection, reverting as many patches from UMN as he ought to find… As it turned out, these “clean reverts” also required guide evaluation; once the initial outrage subsided, there was little choice but to revert patches that were no longer truly buggy. That evaluation has been ongoing over the course of the week and has concerned the efforts of some of the builders. Most of the suspect patches have turned out to be acceptable, if not great, and were eliminated from the revert list; in case your editor’s memory is correct, forty-two patches are nonetheless set to be pulled out of the kernel…

An examination of the whole set of UMN patches confirms a few early impressions, though. The first is that the majority of them do deal with a few different types of actual (if difficult to understand and hit) problems…