Linux To Report MIPS Vulnerabilities But They Often Go Unreported Or Dead Vendors

[torsionbar28]

Those bloody chip vendors should have taken the time and effort to support they're SoCs (with all of the bells and whistles, not just the CPU) in upstream linux.
Instead they create a shitty patch-set which they publish for their BSP layers which won't ever get updated after its initial release.

This goes for all major chip vendors, broadcom, qualcomm etc..
All these Android smartphones, satellite/IPTV receivers are damned to hell after they stop selling.

I sure hope Google will push harder and be more strict when it comes to upstream kernel support.

All true. To them, the Android and Linux underpinnings are not an ecosystem to be supported. They are simply plugging in a required piece of the puzzle, one-and-done, in order to ship the product. After product ships, it's off to designing the next product, with little or no investment in the already shipping one. A definite throw-away consumerism mindset. Then again, these are consumer products, so what do we expect. IMO this is where projects like the FairPhone and e.foundation have a real market opportunity.

[MastaG]

Those bloody chip vendors should have taken the time and effort to support they're SoCs (with all of the bells and whistles, not just the CPU) in upstream linux.
Instead they create a shitty patch-set which they publish for their BSP layers which won't ever get updated after its initial release.

This goes for all major chip vendors, broadcom, qualcomm etc..
All these Android smartphones, satellite/IPTV receivers are damned to hell after they stop selling.

I sure hope Google will push harder and be more strict when it comes to upstream kernel support.

[torsionbar28]

If only there was some legal means to enforce a user's ability to replace the software on the hardware they own with a newer version. Perhaps some way of leveraging the international copyright system? Maybe someone smart at MIT or something can come up with an idea.

Doubtful. If the problem is these small chip vendors going out of business, you can't fix that. Out of Business = ceasing all operations. It's like passing a law requiring a person to do something after they have died. Not possible to implement in the real world.

With the rampant IP theft in recent years, mainly from Chinese entities, I wouldn't trust any kind of code escrow system. Too much risk to the business with no tangible business gains. Plus there is no Global Code Police (thankfully) to enforce something like this.

[bregma]

If only there was some legal means to enforce a user's ability to replace the software on the hardware they own with a newer version. Perhaps some way of leveraging the international copyright system? Maybe someone smart at MIT or something can come up with an idea.

[kieffer]

Well, the `creator CI20` single computer board used to illustrate this piece of news has never been stable enough to make anything usable out of it ... Apparently there is a bug in the MMU which makes the board crash after a couple of hours.

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux To Report MIPS Vulnerabilities But They Often Go Unreported Or Dead Vendors

The Linux kernel with the likes of ARM and x86 hardware leverage kernel infrastructure for reporting their relevant CPU security mitigations while only now the MIPS kernel code is seeing work to report such vulnerabilities. However, on the MIPS front it's more difficult with some vendors not publicly acknowledging vulnerabilities and other cases of MIPS hardware vendors no longer producing the hardware in question or even in business...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Linux-MIPS-Vulnerabilities