Re: [gnome-love] Code Auditing as Love

[Mads Villadsen <maxx daimi au dk>]

> > > > > "Jeff" == Jeff Waugh <jdub perkypants org> writes:

 Jeff> Hi all, I was just reading today's LWN front page
 Jeff> <http://lwn.net/>, and wondered what we were doing to promote
 Jeff> auditing action on the GNOME code... This is certainly
 Jeff> something that budding hackers can contribute to - even lodging
 Jeff> bugs about suspicious code would be very helpful.

 Jeff> Perhaps we should have an Amazing Auditing Dude award of the
 Jeff> week, published in the GNOME summaries? It's very important for
 Jeff> new contributors to feel known and welcome, and I think this
 Jeff> would be a good way to highlight some tough work being done.

 Jeff> [ The tough part of this is that auditing is a
 Jeff> difficult-to-quanitfy task.  Perhaps some of the 'elders' could
 Jeff> recommend interesting ways of getting into this. ]

I just read the same thing, and I was actually thinking about this as
well.

This would be a nice way to get to know the code to a certain
program. What I think is needed is some sort of check list with common
errors (not deallocating memory, using insecure temp files, etc.), and
links to tools that can help (such as memprof, etc.).

I myself have no experience in doing this, so I can't provide the
list, but hopefully others can.

-- 


"Life is a big wild crazy tossed salad, but you don't eat it, no sir!
 You live it! Isn't it great?"

                          - The Tick Vs. El Seed

                --- Mads Villadsen