Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 14:47, James Sparenberg wrote: Note that Slashdot pclinuxonline and others found out about it by point to this page. You can't quite say that much. You can say that they found out about it *and* pointed at this page, not that they found out about it *through* this page. Which is Scott's point. Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 Leon Brooks wrote: FYI; Scott runs a local Linux retail business and consultancy -- Forward; originally to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Subject: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:58 From: Scott Middleton DESPAMMED rant I am pissed off.. Has anyone seen an official announcement to the Mandrake users that using their latest and greatest will completely stuff their CDROM? It's been on the errata page for a few days already. I don't care that it is not their fault. I don't care that Suse has the same problem nor do i care if they have found a fix. I was told because i subscribe to PLUG. I am on the announcements list at Mandrake but it is usually 2 weeks behind. Maybe i will receive an official notice in two weeks! If you are subscribed to security-announce, you would have received notice along with the notification about the kernel update that fixes the issue. I meet people everyday who run Mandrake but are not on any Mailing List. They are not activists, they just don't want to pay for software and they don't want to steal it either. How are they supposed to know when it is not even on the Mandrake Club front page? The MandrakeClub front page is not where you go to read up on issues that may affect you on installation of a new release. That's what the errata page is for. I *always* check the errata page when installing on a client's machine, and usually check it for my own machines too. If you even consider installing a distro on a machine without reading the errata page, you're wasting your time and putting hardware at risk. I think this is a very important piece of information that should be well publicised by them at least in an effort to have some credibility. This just seems typical of M$ worrying about bottom line rather than the users of the product. I expect a big blazon across their homepage saying Please be aware that Mandrake 9.2 can destroy your CDROM. Or at least; some official notice. - From the errata page: If you have or use a LG-based CD-ROM drive please read the special Errata specifically for that severe problem! where Errata points to http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/lgerrata.php3 which has quite comprehensive coverage of the issue. - From the kernel advisory from this morning: A problem was discovered where the kernel would destroy certain LG- based CD-ROM devices. This problem has been fixed in the kernels provided and MandrakeSoft encourages everyone to upgrade. I suppose what really pisses me off is i have now lost one of my major Linux selling points. Linux is good because it doesn't hide its faults, it acknowledges them and then fixes it. ??? I didn't lose any CDROMs only because i didn't (fortunately) upgrade all the machines that are running Mandrake. My home machine luckily doesn't have LG CDROM and is working wonderfully. So for me it wasn't the cost of membership + 1 or more CDROMs but for many others it was. Subtract the cost of the CDROMs, since LG must replace them if they are under warranty (and I think all of them still should be). Even worse for Mandrake it only affects the financial contributors. The people who are starting to make Mandrake profitable, this really can't be good business decision for them. I can live with bugs and mistakes but i can't live with irresponsible behaviour and not informing users is plainly irresponsible. I will have to reconsider being a financial member next year. ??? Maybe i am overreacting about people having to buy a new CDROM, forget the warranty, who wants to wait weeks/months for a replacement one. I am just a bit disappointed in Mandrake and their lack of urgency in informing the public. /rant In the future, please read the errata page *before* installing or ranting. BTW, Mandrakesoft *has* been working extensively on this problem, and not only on this list (we started on the maintainers list on 20 October, as soon as we saw reports from some users on MandrakeClub). The thing is though that it was not totally clear exactly which drives were affected and under which circumstances until a few days later. Anyway, LG is responsible for the problem, if you had destroyed a drive, you could have returned it and had a refund or a replacement unit. I understand your frustration, but it's not possible to conduct every single issue in public, and the errata page exists for a reason, for you to read it *before* installing, *especially* if you are a consultant and install on other people's hardware. Regards, Buchan - -- |--Another happy Mandrake Club member--| Buchan MilneMechanical Engineer, Network Manager Cellphone * Work+27 82 472 2231 * +27 21 8828820x202 Stellenbosch Automotive Engineering http://www.cae.co.za GPG Key http://ranger.dnsalias.com/bgmilne.asc 1024D/60D204A7 2919
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
--- Buchan Milne [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: where Errata points to http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/lgerrata.php3 which has quite comprehensive coverage of the issue. That's a great page! Very informative. Somehow you missed my submission. I have a GCE-8400B CD-RW that works fine. Possibly it was entered as CRD-8400B cause this model is listed as both affected and unaffected. Also there's a tipo: Ner InfoTool (should be Nero InfoTool). __ Do you Yahoo!? Exclusive Video Premiere - Britney Spears http://launch.yahoo.com/promos/britneyspears/
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
Leon Brooks wrote: FYI; Scott runs a local Linux retail business and consultancy -- Forward; originally to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Subject: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:58 From: Scott Middleton DESPAMMED rant I am pissed off.. Has anyone seen an official announcement to the Mandrake users that using their latest and greatest will completely stuff their CDROM? I don't care that it is not their fault. I don't care that Suse has the same problem nor do i care if they have found a fix. I was told because i subscribe to PLUG. I am on the announcements list at Mandrake but it is usually 2 weeks behind. Maybe i will receive an official notice in two weeks! I meet people everyday who run Mandrake but are not on any Mailing List. They are not activists, they just don't want to pay for software and they don't want to steal it either. How are they supposed to know when it is not even on the Mandrake Club front page? I think this is a very important piece of information that should be well publicised by them at least in an effort to have some credibility. This just seems typical of M$ worrying about bottom line rather than the users of the product. I expect a big blazon across their homepage saying Please be aware that Mandrake 9.2 can destroy your CDROM. Or at least; some official notice. I suppose what really pisses me off is i have now lost one of my major Linux selling points. Linux is good because it doesn't hide its faults, it acknowledges them and then fixes it. I didn't lose any CDROMs only because i didn't (fortunately) upgrade all the machines that are running Mandrake. My home machine luckily doesn't have LG CDROM and is working wonderfully. So for me it wasn't the cost of membership + 1 or more CDROMs but for many others it was. Even worse for Mandrake it only affects the financial contributors. The people who are starting to make Mandrake profitable, this really can't be good business decision for them. I can live with bugs and mistakes but i can't live with irresponsible behaviour and not informing users is plainly irresponsible. I will have to reconsider being a financial member next year. Maybe i am overreacting about people having to buy a new CDROM, forget the warranty, who wants to wait weeks/months for a replacement one. I am just a bit disappointed in Mandrake and their lack of urgency in informing the public. /rant Regards -- Scott Middleton Linux Information Technology www.linuxit.com.au scott AT linuxit.com.au (08) 9331 8051 ___ plug mailing list plug AT plug.linux.org.au http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug --- Cheers; Leon I appreciate that much of Linux happens because of wonderful, selfless volunteerism but I am also aware of the strain that occasionally surfaces, due to the rigors of such uncompensated or under-compensated work. The fact is, a distribution requires money to exist. It would not be prudent to impose too heavily on volunteerism when planning a future for the distribution. As one who does make use of the resources such as the Club and mailing lists (all part of that which costs money) to keep abreast of developments, I perceived the work done by Mandrake to analyze, repair, and inform to proceed as quickly as humanly possible. Linux, in its present incarnation, is best enjoyed when some user-side sweat equity is invested. Perhaps, at least in the current economic environment, it would be unwise to commit further, limited resources in the uncompensated service of those who merely just don't want to pay for software and (...) don't want to steal it either. Rolf
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:45, Rolf Pedersen wrote: Perhaps, at least in the current economic environment, it would be unwise to commit further, limited resources in the uncompensated service of those who merely just don't want to pay for software and (...) don't want to steal it either. I understand your point, but that's not Scott's issue. Scott's issue is that he _is_ a fully subscribed Club member and is on the appropriate announce lists but still found out about LG's faux pas first from other sources. Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
On Tue, 28 Oct 2003 22:45, Rolf Pedersen wrote: Perhaps, at least in the current economic environment, it would be unwise to commit further, limited resources in the uncompensated service of those who merely just don't want to pay for software and (...) don't want to steal it either. I understand your point, but that's not Scott's issue. Scott's issue is that he _is_ a fully subscribed Club member and is on the appropriate announce lists MandrakeClub was the place this issue was first brought to light (in the MandrakeClub forum), about 19 October. I reported it on the maintainers list when I saw two different reports. IIRC that was 20 Oct. Since the only people who officially have access to the ISOs up to now are in MandrakeClub, this is the logical place to look. I also don't think it would have been responsible for the immediate action to be a story on MandrakeClub's front page without at least some verification/investigation, and that occured on Oct 20 and 21 on the maintainers list, whereafter it moved to cooker. 3 days after the 2nd report on MandrakeClub (IIRC) there was a note on the errata page (which really should be the place *everyone* looks before installing - and BTW we actually discussed that on maintainers before the LG issue and hopefully in future users will be urged to read the errata by the splash screen or similar). Just over a week after the 2nd report on MandrakeClub and we have kernels and full advisories out. I believe a lot of the threads about the LG drives were CC'ed to the expert list? I really don't think it could have been handled any better with current resources. but still found out about LG's faux pas first from other sources. Yes, I do find it strange LG didn't notify their customers who all paid hard cash for their hardware of this vulnerability in their hardware earlier, and urge them to do a firmware update. I wonder how long it will before (now that this vulnerability is more public) until there is a Windows worm which sends FLUSH_CACHE to LG cd-rom drives ... Regards, Buchan
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
On Tuesday 28 October 2003 06:07 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Scott's issue is that he _is_ a fully subscribed Club member and is on the appropriate announce lists MandrakeClub was the place this issue was first brought to light (in the MandrakeClub forum), about 19 October. I reported it on the maintainers list when I saw two different reports. IIRC that was 20 Oct. I have to agree here. If he missed it, he didn't look very hard. It was on the errata page, it was all over the Club forums, there were multiple threads on newbie, expert and cooker lists, there are pages on both twiki's dedicated to the trouble. Then there are all the non-Mandrake places it was mentioned, osnews, Mandrakeusers.org, slashdot, people were even talking about it on alt.os.linux.mandrake. I don't understand how he could expect an official announcement from MandrakeSoft before they knew definitively what was going on. The errata page is a must read before installing any version for the first time and he's got to take responsibility himself for not looking for problems. -- /g Outside of a dog, a man's best friend is a book, inside a dog it's too dark to read -Groucho Marx
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
Greg Meyer kirjoitti viestissään (lähetysaika Keskiviikko 29 Lokakuu 2003 02:19): On Tuesday 28 October 2003 06:07 pm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Scott's issue is that he _is_ a fully subscribed Club member and is on the appropriate announce lists MandrakeClub was the place this issue was first brought to light (in the MandrakeClub forum), about 19 October. I reported it on the maintainers list when I saw two different reports. IIRC that was 20 Oct. I have to agree here. If he missed it, he didn't look very hard. It was on the errata page, it was all over the Club forums, there were multiple threads on newbie, expert and cooker lists, there are pages on both twiki's dedicated to the trouble. Then there are all the non-Mandrake places it was mentioned, osnews, Mandrakeusers.org, slashdot, people were even talking about it on alt.os.linux.mandrake. I don't understand how he could expect an official announcement from MandrakeSoft before they knew definitively what was going on. The errata page is a must read before installing any version for the first time and he's got to take responsibility himself for not looking for problems. and October 24 there was a official announcement posted on: http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/ http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/fnews.php3 -- Regards Thomas
[Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
FYI; Scott runs a local Linux retail business and consultancy -- Forward; originally to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- Subject: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:58 From: Scott Middleton DESPAMMED rant I am pissed off.. Has anyone seen an official announcement to the Mandrake users that using their latest and greatest will completely stuff their CDROM? I don't care that it is not their fault. I don't care that Suse has the same problem nor do i care if they have found a fix. I was told because i subscribe to PLUG. I am on the announcements list at Mandrake but it is usually 2 weeks behind. Maybe i will receive an official notice in two weeks! I meet people everyday who run Mandrake but are not on any Mailing List. They are not activists, they just don't want to pay for software and they don't want to steal it either. How are they supposed to know when it is not even on the Mandrake Club front page? I think this is a very important piece of information that should be well publicised by them at least in an effort to have some credibility. This just seems typical of M$ worrying about bottom line rather than the users of the product. I expect a big blazon across their homepage saying Please be aware that Mandrake 9.2 can destroy your CDROM. Or at least; some official notice. I suppose what really pisses me off is i have now lost one of my major Linux selling points. Linux is good because it doesn't hide its faults, it acknowledges them and then fixes it. I didn't lose any CDROMs only because i didn't (fortunately) upgrade all the machines that are running Mandrake. My home machine luckily doesn't have LG CDROM and is working wonderfully. So for me it wasn't the cost of membership + 1 or more CDROMs but for many others it was. Even worse for Mandrake it only affects the financial contributors. The people who are starting to make Mandrake profitable, this really can't be good business decision for them. I can live with bugs and mistakes but i can't live with irresponsible behaviour and not informing users is plainly irresponsible. I will have to reconsider being a financial member next year. Maybe i am overreacting about people having to buy a new CDROM, forget the warranty, who wants to wait weeks/months for a replacement one. I am just a bit disappointed in Mandrake and their lack of urgency in informing the public. /rant Regards -- Scott Middleton Linux Information Technology www.linuxit.com.au scott AT linuxit.com.au (08) 9331 8051 ___ plug mailing list plug AT plug.linux.org.au http://mail.plug.linux.org.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug --- Cheers; Leon
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
On Tuesday 28 October 2003 01:11, Leon Brooks wrote: FYI; Scott runs a local Linux retail business and consultancy Subject: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:58 From: Scott Middleton DESPAMMED rant I am pissed off.. Has anyone seen an official announcement to the Mandrake users that using their latest and greatest will completely stuff their CDROM? I don't care that it is not their fault. I don't I was all set to reply to this mail with You're full of it, the distro hasn't even shipped yet and it was all over Mandrakeclub, but It wasn't. Turns out the only reason I know about this is because I subscribed to cooker in preparation for submitting my own RPM's to contrib. I would have eventually seen the article on slashdot or the register about it, but by then I would have tried to install it on a client's machine that had been earmarked for Mandrake 9.2 and which, indeed, had an LG CD-ROM drive in it. What worries me more is that this was discovered after 9.2 had gone gold and presumably been stamped on aluminum and boxed for sending out to retail stores and replacing CD's (or worse yet, orchestrating a recall) will cost money that Mandrake couldn't need more right now. Worse still would be if this got into the channel and someone with an axe to grind decided to sue Mandrake for knowingly selling something that would destroy equipment, however cheap the equipment may be... in some jurisdictions this would probably be legal no matter what the EULA or the GPL says. I wish I could be a little more constructive here, but all I can come up with is do better next time, guys. Not that I want there to be a next time as far as blowing up out-of-spec Korean drives goes, but I certainly hope to see Mandrake 10.0 sometime next year. Rob
Re: [Cooker] Fwd: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead
On Mon, 2003-10-27 at 22:29, Rob wrote: On Tuesday 28 October 2003 01:11, Leon Brooks wrote: FYI; Scott runs a local Linux retail business and consultancy Subject: [plug] Mandrake Bug announce warning rant ahead Date: Tue, 28 Oct 2003 09:58 From: Scott Middleton DESPAMMED rant I am pissed off.. Has anyone seen an official announcement to the Mandrake users that using their latest and greatest will completely stuff their CDROM? I don't care that it is not their fault. I don't I was all set to reply to this mail with You're full of it, the distro hasn't even shipped yet and it was all over Mandrakeclub, but It wasn't. Turns out the only reason I know about this is because I subscribed to cooker in preparation for submitting my own RPM's to contrib. I would have eventually seen the article on slashdot or the register about it, but by then I would have tried to install it on a client's machine that had been earmarked for Mandrake 9.2 and which, indeed, had an LG CD-ROM drive in it. What worries me more is that this was discovered after 9.2 had gone gold and presumably been stamped on aluminum and boxed for sending out to retail stores and replacing CD's (or worse yet, orchestrating a recall) will cost money that Mandrake couldn't need more right now. Worse still would be if this got into the channel and someone with an axe to grind decided to sue Mandrake for knowingly selling something that would destroy equipment, however cheap the equipment may be... in some jurisdictions this would probably be legal no matter what the EULA or the GPL says. I wish I could be a little more constructive here, but all I can come up with is do better next time, guys. Not that I want there to be a next time as far as blowing up out-of-spec Korean drives goes, but I certainly hope to see Mandrake 10.0 sometime next year. Rob In all due fairness it's been at the top of the errata page for quite a while. http://www.mandrakelinux.com/en/errata.php3#badlg Note that Slashdot pclinuxonline and others found out about it by point to this page. James
