Re: Official Linux system wrapper library?

From: Daniel Colascione
Date: Mon Nov 12 2018 - 09:40:06 EST


On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 6:35 AM, Theodore Y. Ts'o <tytso@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 12, 2018 at 12:45:26PM +0000, Szabolcs Nagy wrote:
>> >> A lot of the new system calls lack clear specifications or are just
>> >> somewhat misdesigned. For example, pkey_alloc
>> > [snip]
>> >> getrandom still causes boot delays
>
> I'll note that what some people consider misdesigns, others consider
> "fix CVE's".
>
> Some people may consider it more important to avoid boot delays;
> others would consider internet-wide security problems, ala
> https://factorable.net to be higher priority.
>
> It's clear this is one area where I and some glibc developers have had
> a difference of opinion. The bigger problem is that if a single glibc
> developer is able to veto any new system call, maybe we *do* need to
> have a kernel-provided library which bypasses glibc....

Historically speaking, the liberum veto has not led to good governance.