Just couple of common words first. I realize that sometimes we can't match the level of enthusiasm of our contributors [which might be experienced as frustrating], but I want to emphasize that it does *not* mean that the feedback is not appreciated. Please, keep up the good work and bear with us. It *is* appreciated.

Next thing to understand. Changes to 0.9.7 are *currently* prioritized, because we're trying to schedule 0.9.7f release. For this reason we [or at least I] a bit reluctant to apply cosmetic changes to 0.9.7. Or in other words changes that solve *real* problems in 0.9.7 are prioritized for *this* particular moment. So don't get upset if you find that not everything went in, or you have to argue and show that the problem is *real*, or 0.9.8 changes were left without immediate attention.

When I last submitted patches in August, I was trying to get adequate
entropy for DOS. I think the answer is probably to use a separate
program to create /dev/random and /dev/urandom equivalents, then use
the mechanism in rand_unix.c. The DOS program "noise" collects entropy
by sampling keystroke timings, exec() and exit() timings, and flush()
timings. Because of peculiarities of the DOS filesystem, the authors
of "noise" create "/dev/random$" and "/dev/urandom$" rather than
/dev/random and /dev/urandom, avoiding problems reading files with
similar names. I added a default define for DEVRANDOM to the DJGPP
CFLAGs to enable use of the noise program, and had /dev/urandom$ read
in binary mode in rand_unix.c.

I haven't audited the proposed patch yet, but I'd like you to explicitly state what happens if the "noise" driver is not installed at end-user system and provide a pointer to the driver (I know you've provided one back then, but please send it once again). This would be of value to mention in INSTALL.DJGPP. In fact just write a paragraph *as* if it was meant for INSTALL.DJGPP. A.


______________________________________________________________________
OpenSSL Project                                 http://www.openssl.org
Development Mailing List                       [email protected]
Automated List Manager                           [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Reply via email to