Nouveau - Jan 2022 - [PATCH] drm/nouveau/acr: Fix undefined behavior in nvkm_acr_hsfw_load_bl()

On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 08:18:55AM -0600, Kangjie Lu
wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 1:58 PM Karol Herbst <kherbst at redhat.com>
wrote:
> >
> > On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 8:54 PM Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at
gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 2:20 PM Lyude Paul <lyude at
redhat.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Sigh-thank you for catching this - I had totally forgot
about the umn.edu ban.
> > > > I pushed this already but I will go ahead and send a revert
for this patch.
> > > > Will cc you on it as well.
> > >
> > > This seems short-sighted.  If the patch is valid I see no reason
to
> > > not accept it.  I'm not trying to downplay the mess umn got
into, but
> > > as long as the patch is well scrutinized and fixes a valid issue,
it
> > > should be applied rather than leaving potential bugs in place.
> > >
> > > Alex
> > >
> >
> > Even though knowing that malicious code can be introduced via
> > perfectly fine looking patches, and sometimes one will never spot the
> > problem, this patch isn't all that bad tbh.
> >
> > So should we reject patches out of "policies" or should we
just be
> > extra careful? But not addressing the concerns as Greg pointed out is
> > also kind of a bad move, but also not knowing what the state of
> > resolving this mess is anyway.
> 
> 
> Seeing some discussion here, I feel I owe you some quick updates on
> the state. We sent three testing patches in August 2020, which is a
> serious mistake. We never did that again and will never do that again.
> All other patches including recent ones were sent to fix real bugs,
> not to introduce problems. Clearly, although most of the patches are
> valid, some patches are still not good enough, but it is not about
> malice. Fixing bugs in Linux isn't an easy task and takes so much
> effort.
> 
> We did not ignore the concerns pointed out by Greg, and have seriously
> taken some actions. For example, we explained how our static-analysis
> tool found the bugs, and members in my research group have internally
> cross-reviewed the found bugs. We sent these patches after contacting
> Greg---I thought Greg allowed us to send patches, but also requested
> us to work on the last process with our administration.
I do not recall saying anything like this at all.

On January 4, I wrote to you and your coworkers on the mailing list
message https://lore.kernel.org/r/YdQfCGf8qr5zZJef at kroah.com by saying:

	Note that your university is still in many kernel maintainer's
	ignore-list (myself included, I dug this up as I saw Fei's response.)
	Please work with your administration and the process that is currently
	happening in order to give you all the needed training so you will not
	keep causing these types of basic errors that keep your patches from
	being accepted.

	*plonk*

And then later in a private email to you on January 5 where you emailed
Kees and me to try to see if you were allowed to start sending patches
again, I said:

	A kernel developer with lots of experience has already offered to work
	with your university.  Hopefully that process has already started, if
	not, I suggest contacting your administration as they should know who
	this is.

and then I closed with:

	Right now you all are still on my "ignore email" lists for patches.

The patches recently submitted have been shown to be incomplete and in
some places, completely wrong.  I have contacted your administration
about this issue because they asked to know if there were any problems
in the future at our last discussion.  In that response today, I wrote:

	I know that incompetence can often times be hard to distinguish from
	malice, but given the track-record here, we are now going to have to
	treat this as malice.  If it is just incompetence, well, that's
	something that your organization needs to overcome.

	Either way, this is not something that the Linux kernel community should
	be forced to endure.

So to be explicit, so you do not misunderstand me somehow:

	No more patches from umn.edu should be accepted into the Linux
	kernel until further public notice.  They should be considered a
	"bad actor" given their prior history of submissions and lack of
	complying with the kernel community's prior requirements to
	them.

Is this understood?

greg k-h

Hi,Greg,

On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 8:47 AM Greg KH <gregkh at linuxfoundation.org>
wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 08:18:55AM -0600, Kangjie Lu wrote:
> > On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 1:58 PM Karol Herbst <kherbst at
redhat.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 8:54 PM Alex Deucher <alexdeucher at
gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > On Fri, Jan 28, 2022 at 2:20 PM Lyude Paul <lyude at
redhat.com> wrote:
> > > > >
> > > > > Sigh-thank you for catching this - I had totally forgot
about the umn.edu ban.
> > > > > I pushed this already but I will go ahead and send a
revert for this patch.
> > > > > Will cc you on it as well.
> > > >
> > > > This seems short-sighted.  If the patch is valid I see no
reason to
> > > > not accept it.  I'm not trying to downplay the mess umn
got into, but
> > > > as long as the patch is well scrutinized and fixes a valid
issue, it
> > > > should be applied rather than leaving potential bugs in
place.
> > > >
> > > > Alex
> > > >
> > >
> > > Even though knowing that malicious code can be introduced via
> > > perfectly fine looking patches, and sometimes one will never spot
the
> > > problem, this patch isn't all that bad tbh.
> > >
> > > So should we reject patches out of "policies" or should
we just be
> > > extra careful? But not addressing the concerns as Greg pointed
out is
> > > also kind of a bad move, but also not knowing what the state of
> > > resolving this mess is anyway.
> >
> >
> > Seeing some discussion here, I feel I owe you some quick updates on
> > the state. We sent three testing patches in August 2020, which is a
> > serious mistake. We never did that again and will never do that again.
> > All other patches including recent ones were sent to fix real bugs,
> > not to introduce problems. Clearly, although most of the patches are
> > valid, some patches are still not good enough, but it is not about
> > malice. Fixing bugs in Linux isn't an easy task and takes so much
> > effort.
> >
> > We did not ignore the concerns pointed out by Greg, and have seriously
> > taken some actions. For example, we explained how our static-analysis
> > tool found the bugs, and members in my research group have internally
> > cross-reviewed the found bugs. We sent these patches after contacting
> > Greg---I thought Greg allowed us to send patches, but also requested
> > us to work on the last process with our administration.
>
> I do not recall saying anything like this at all.
I was referring to an email back to 11/13/2021 where you said
"some memory allocation checks are not ever going to be
"resolved" as they are
not "real world" issues. So be aware of that when proposing patches
for these issues."

I optimistically interpreted this as, "you can still submit patches,
but I will personally ignore them". This turns out to be a
misunderstanding. I am sorry for that.
>
> On January 4, I wrote to you and your coworkers on the mailing list
> message https://lore.kernel.org/r/YdQfCGf8qr5zZJef at kroah.com by saying:
>
>         Note that your university is still in many kernel maintainer's
>         ignore-list (myself included, I dug this up as I saw Fei's
response.)
>         Please work with your administration and the process that is
currently
>         happening in order to give you all the needed training so you will
not
>         keep causing these types of basic errors that keep your patches
from
>         being accepted.
>
>         *plonk*
>
> And then later in a private email to you on January 5 where you emailed
> Kees and me to try to see if you were allowed to start sending patches
> again, I said:
>
>         A kernel developer with lots of experience has already offered to
work
>         with your university.  Hopefully that process has already started,
if
>         not, I suggest contacting your administration as they should know
who
>         this is.
>
> and then I closed with:
>
>         Right now you all are still on my "ignore email" lists
for patches.
>
> The patches recently submitted have been shown to be incomplete and in
> some places, completely wrong.  I have contacted your administration
> about this issue because they asked to know if there were any problems
> in the future at our last discussion.  In that response today, I wrote:
>
>         I know that incompetence can often times be hard to distinguish
from
>         malice, but given the track-record here, we are now going to have
to
>         treat this as malice.  If it is just incompetence, well, that's
>         something that your organization needs to overcome.
>
>         Either way, this is not something that the Linux kernel community
should
>         be forced to endure.
>
> So to be explicit, so you do not misunderstand me somehow:
>
>         No more patches from umn.edu should be accepted into the Linux
>         kernel until further public notice.
This is clear to me.
> They should be considered a
>         "bad actor" given their prior history of submissions and
lack of
>         complying with the kernel community's prior requirements to
>         them.
I am sorry for the delay of the last process which is unfortunately
not under the control of the researchers. According to our
administration, the process has started and is moving forward. I hope
that can be done soon.

Thanks.
>
> Is this understood?
>
> greg k-h


-- 
Kangjie Lu
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science and Engineering
University of Minnesota
https://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~kjlu

On Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 09:19:18AM -0600, Kangjie Lu
wrote:
> > So to be explicit, so you do not misunderstand me somehow:
> >
> >         No more patches from umn.edu should be accepted into the Linux
> >         kernel until further public notice.
> 
> This is clear to me.
> 
> > They should be considered a
> >         "bad actor" given their prior history of submissions
and lack of
> >         complying with the kernel community's prior requirements
to
> >         them.
> 
> I am sorry for the delay of the last process which is unfortunately
> not under the control of the researchers. According to our
> administration, the process has started and is moving forward. I hope
> that can be done soon.
Given that our previously agreed-upon requirements were not met, I do
not think that finally meeting these requirements when caught that you
were not following them is going to be acceptable to allow your
organization to return to the kernel community.

Your people have shown bad-faith toward us too many times, and we have
wasted too much of our own time and energy on this for absolutely no
benefit at all, except as an example to point others at and say "do not
be like them."

greg k-h