Limits to what can be done without source

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2006-05-17 at 14:16, Andy Green wrote:

> ABI churn is not the only problem with binary blobs.  Point in case I 
> saw on this list in the last couple of days, Adobe Acrobat blew chunks 
> on a double free.  This is not an ABI problem but a hidden bug in the 
> binary blob.

It's not hidden to everyone so that's not a reasonable description
of the problem.  It's just an ordinary bug to be fixed by the
responsible party.  Give them some reason to care about fixing
it - like a platform that has a reputation for cooperating with
other suppliers and a large user base - and the responsible
parties will take care of their parts.
 
> > Provide a documented and unchanging interface so if something works
> > today it will still work next week.
> 
> That does not follow for the same reason... a stable ABI would be nice 
> but that's not what one can expect with Linux.  It won't guarantee 
> binary blobs becoming paragons of coding virtue and to provide immortal 
> functionality either.

There are broken binary blobs and there are binary blobs that
are perfectly fine.  It doesn't make a lot of sense to
overgeneralize about them.  There's a lot of crud available
in source too.

> I have to maintain a chunk of kernelside code and tracking the whiplash 
> on the kernel can be a PITA, so your point is understood.  But it's not 
> like the only issue with opaque binaries is that the ABI keeps changing.

It's the issue that keeps them from being fixed.  I don't see
similar problems happening with OS X for example.  There are
normal bugs that show up, but once fixed they don't reappear
on every release.

-- 
  Les Mikesell
    lesmikesll at gmail.com