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Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

memorysafety.org

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Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#21

Post by userbinator »

One critical example of such infrastructure is the Linux kernel, used in most servers in the world as well as in billions of devices.

...billions of devices which the manufacturer does not want you to own, to be fair, and for which full ownership requires breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen. You might think that's a political/social issue and this is merely a technical one, but if the tech advances ahead without such consideration, eventually there might be no way to oppose. That's why things like this always make me feel considerable unease...

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#22

Post by fomine3 »

fastball wrote: post #18
fomine3 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android? They need to develop "repo" tool to use git. Similarly, Windows should be bigger (though it's closed source) so they develop VFSforGit tool.

Android runs a linux kernel under the hood, so it seems hard to make the argument that it is a bigger software project. As for windows, I'm fairly certain that more devices run the linux kernel than Windows as well.

I think "Largest" is for codebase size. For most widespread software project, it would be SQLite or Zlib.

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#23

Post by amarshall »

userbinator wrote: post #21

One critical example of such infrastructure is the Linux kernel, used in most servers in the world as well as in billions of devices. ...billions of devices which the manufacturer does not want you to own, to be fair, and for which full ownership requires breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen. You might think that's a political/social issue and this is merely a tec…

> breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen

Could you elaborate why Kernel memory safety via Rust impedes “full ownership”?

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#24

Post by nequo »

amarshall wrote: post #23
userbinator wrote: post #21

One critical example of such infrastructure is the Linux kernel, used in most servers in the world as well as in billions of devices. ...billions of devices which the manufacturer does not want you to own, to be fair, and for which full ownership requires breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen. You might think that's a political/social issue and this is merely a tec…

> breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen Could you elaborate why Kernel memory safety via Rust impedes “full ownership”?

Memory safety means fewer bugs means harder to root your Android device and use the hardware you paid for in ways you want?

Just guessing. It’s high time we had competitive open-source options in the smartphone space.

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#25

Post by fastball »

fomine3 wrote: post #22
fastball wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Android runs a linux kernel under the hood, so it seems hard to make the argument that it is a bigger software project. As for windows, I'm fairly certain that more devices run the linux kernel than Windows as well.

I think "Largest" is for codebase size. For most widespread software project, it would be SQLite or Zlib.

What about by number of contributors?

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#26

Post by ipdashc »

layer8 wrote: post #15
jeffbee wrote: post #9

Can we talk about “world’s largest”? This seems extremely unlikely by any measure.

Going by lines of code, Linux is probably not the largest: https://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/millio... Linux currently has around 30 million lines of code I believe.

Surprised the 5ESS wasn't mentioned on here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5ESS_Switching_System

> The development effort for 5ESS required five thousand employees, producing 100 million lines of system source code, mostly in the C language, with 100 million lines of header files and makefiles.

Granted, this section is suspiciously citation-free, so it's fair to take it with a grain of salt.

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#28

Post by kbumsik »

jeffbee wrote: post #9

Can we talk about “world’s largest”? This seems extremely unlikely by any measure.

Well, interestingly Microsoft claims that Windows is the largest git repo on the planet (2017).

And it looks bigger than Linux by its repo size:

> the Windows code base is approximately 3.5M files and, when checked in to a Git repo, results in a repo of about 300GB. Further, the Windows team is about 4,000 engineers and the engineering system produces 1,760 daily “lab builds” across 440 branches in addition to thousands of pull request validation builds.

https://devblogs.microsoft.com/bharry/the-largest-git-repo-o...

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#29

Post by brundolf »

userbinator wrote: post #21

One critical example of such infrastructure is the Linux kernel, used in most servers in the world as well as in billions of devices. ...billions of devices which the manufacturer does not want you to own, to be fair, and for which full ownership requires breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen. You might think that's a political/social issue and this is merely a tec…

It's worth thinking about the consequences, but I don't think a realistic solution is "just don't try to improve software security"

Re: Memory safety for the world’s largest software project

#30

Post by AgentME »

userbinator wrote: post #21

One critical example of such infrastructure is the Linux kernel, used in most servers in the world as well as in billions of devices. ...billions of devices which the manufacturer does not want you to own, to be fair, and for which full ownership requires breaking through the security features that initiatives like this are trying to strengthen. You might think that's a political/social issue and this is merely a tec…

Memory safety issues don't just mean people can root their own devices, they can often mean that outside attackers can root your devices too.
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