bugtraq - Re: what we REALLY learned from WMF

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Message-ID: <43BE60B5.2080807@linuxbox.org>
Date: Fri, 06 Jan 2006 14:21:09 +0200
From: Gadi Evron <ge@...uxbox.org>
To: Adrian Marsden <amarsden@...det.org>
Cc: full-disclosure@...ts.grok.org.uk, bugtraq@...urityfocus.com
Subject: Re: what we REALLY learned from WMF


Adrian Marsden wrote:
> Actually, what this whole situation proves is that a company with an installed base that figures in, what, the 90th percentile has an incredible amount of testing to do but that a talented individual can create a patch and issue it basically untested with the appropriate disclaimer quite rapidly.
> 
> In this instance the patch didn't fix the vulnerable code at the source and was truly a "patch". Had MS issued that patch immediately it seems to me that you would have criticised them for putting out a "half-assed" patch. Had they issued their actual patch untested and it broke a couple of percent of their user base's installs you probably would have castigated them for being irresponsible and not testing the patch.
> 
> What actually occured was that they, as is their policy, issued the best workaround they could, (unreg the .dll), and promised a patch by a certain date. They beat the schedule by what 25%, maybe 50% from the time they made the promise. In any performance evaluation one would have to conclude that MS performed "better than expected".
> 
> I would agree that not asking for improvement ever would lead to further mediocrity but at the same time, placing anyone in a no-win situation _all_ the time eventually leads to them losing interest. Giving credit where it is due isn't unfair in this situation and in the end you always get more with sugar than you do vinegar.

I am not criticizing Microsoft over the patch. I am happy.

I am just saying that we as an industry got used to False Positives, 
slow responses, etc. We should demand more and this situation proved it 
is possible.

	Gadi.
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