Graphics Driver Frameworks and Security

[Alan Coopersmith]

olafBuddenhagen at gmx.net wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> For those who haven't seen it yet, there is a nice new flame by Theo de
> Raadt:
> 
>    http://marc.theaimsgroup.com/?l=openbsd-misc&m=114738577123893
> 
> While I don't like Theo's tone and assigning blame etc., on the actual
> issue I couldn't agree more.

He's wrong in a few places - unless you accept that he uses "X" as an unstated
shorthand for "common implementations of X on x86 and similar architectures."
Many X servers run without root privileges, using in kernel drivers for their
dirty work - unfortunately those are mainly closed source ones on platforms
where the kernel, drivers, and X server (and often even the hardware) are all
from the same company.

(BTW, someone should point out to Theo all the bugs & e-mail we're getting now
  about the ATI closed drivers not working on Xorg 7.1 because we chose to
  break the vendor binary drivers in this release.  Guess we've failed our
  lapdog role.)

-- 
	-Alan Coopersmith-           alan.coopersmith at sun.com
	 Sun Microsystems, Inc. - X Window System Engineering