[arch-general] Important notice on the Arch Security Team to the whole Arch Linux community.

[C Anthony Risinger]

On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 10:16 PM, Allan McRae <allan at archlinux.org> wrote:
> On 22/06/10 12:07, C Anthony Risinger wrote:
>>
>> my point of this ramble if there is one, is that personally, i don't
>> want _anyone_ other than upstream to make security decisions regarding
>> their software.if Arch started naively backporting stuff based of
>
>> the latest alert from XYZ, i wouldn't be sticking around to long.
>> even if an security hole is found i _don't_ want the fix to be
>> included by default, unless it came from upstream in the form of a new
>> release, which Arch would just pick up as usual.
>
>
> Then you should probably move along...
>
>> find /var/abs -name *CVE*
> /var/abs/extra/libmikmod/libmikmod-CVE-2009-0179.patch
> /var/abs/extra/xmms/xmms-1.2.11-CVE-2007-0653.0654.patch
> /var/abs/extra/alpine/CVE-2008-5514.patch
> /var/abs/extra/libtiff/libtiff-CVE-2009-2285.patch
> /var/abs/extra/libtiff/tiff-3.9.0-CVE-2009-2347.patch
> /var/abs/extra/id3lib/id3lib-3.8.3-CVE-2007-4460.patch
> /var/abs/core/expat/CVE-2009-3720.patch
> /var/abs/core/expat/CVE-2009-3560.patch
>
> and these are just the patches named for the security issue they fix.
>
> The point is that the developers around here already patch for security
> issues.  The only change that I think that a security team will achieve is
> to notify me (as a developer) of issues that I have overlooked on the
> upstream mailing lists and file a bug report.  It is a bonus if the issue is
> pre-analyzed for me and all relevant links supplied so I can assess it
> quickly myself and release a fixed package if I deem that being suitable.

indeed.  2007/8/9?  are these patches from years ago, for dead
software (xmms?)?  i don't know the state of the others.

alright, so you're patching stuff... why?  why are such old patches
not in upstream?  if things were done appropriately there wouldn't be
a need for intermediary patches because glaring security holes are
quickly absorbed into upstream.  or... whats the deal here?  i don't
get the need to carry these around.

at any rate i don't agree with it but meh, i'm just a worker bee :-)

C Anthony