Hacker News Reader

Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

Does everyone who releases drivers release buggy drivers?

Close to 100% of software has bugs. Almost all drivers have bugs. Anything that prioritises company profit and release dates over complete correctness in sectors where bugs == deaths, will have bugs. (And even those sectors are not magically immune) So yes - I expect they do.

So are vendors who release buggy drivers not "dicks" for the same reason that chip manufacturers aren't?

Unless they released it maliciously, I don't hold it against them. And wouldn't call anyone a dick unless they planned to do something evil.

Exceptions: issue was known but got ignored due to release schedule, or security was never mentioned in the project and at no level was there any security consideration. But that's for specific management issues, not engineers or the vendor in general.

That's an incredibly low bar. All you have to do to meet is is not actively look for security vulnerabilities in your products.

What's important aren't really the bugs, bugs can be fixed. What's important is who is allowed to run, inspect, share, and modify the code. If only the copyright holder is allowed to do this, that's proprietary software and that's malicious. If a user's software freedom is respected so users can choose to fix it themselves, wait for another release, hire someone else to fix the code, or live with the bugs that's treating the user properly.

Everyone makes mistakes; it's more about how those mistakes are handled and if a user's control over their computer is respected.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com