[conspire] Candidate for tech. article of the year

[Nick Moffitt]

On 30Mar2021 08:42pm (-0700), Rick Moen wrote:
> https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2021/03/buffer-overruns-license-violations-and-bad-code-freebsd-13s-close-call/
[...]
> The mishap was really nobody's fault specifically, and part of the
> genius of Salter's reporting is that he makes clear how this Just
> Happened.  And, as the author notes, the benefit of open source that
> anyone can review the code is largely lost if nobody does.

What I also found interesting about this article is the role that commercial self-interest played in the whole mess.  In the 90s we used to have to put up with knowitalls proudly saying "I'd want to know that the firmware on my dialysis machine was written for money."  

Here we can see that the author's financial troubles were part of the reason this was taken on and completed as a rush job.  Payment for the work was not a force for quality.

Now, there's definitely an argument to be made that the default disclaimer of warranty in most Free Software licences is problematic, as "The r0ml" touches on in this piece:

	https://r0ml.medium.com/free-software-an-idea-whose-time-has-passed-6570c1d8218a