Coverity releases first defect survey results [LWN.net]

Coverity releases first defect survey results

Posted Mar 6, 2006 15:23 UTC (Mon) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022)
Parent article: Coverity releases first defect survey results

It'd be better of we knew their operational criteria for "defect".

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Defect criteria

Posted Mar 6, 2006 15:29 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

I'd say a "defect" is a bug which can be detected by Coverity's tools.

As an added note, the first set of reports for the kernel has made it to some of the developers, and patches are already circulating.

Defect criteria

Posted Mar 6, 2006 15:45 UTC (Mon) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link]

I had guessed that much. :) I'm just a greedy little monkey when it comes to details.

I find it interesting to note that the 2.6 kernel "blows clean" on the defects table, since there are obviously some to be reported.

Found on linux-kernel

Posted Mar 6, 2006 16:39 UTC (Mon) by kirkengaard (subscriber, #15022) [Link]

Date Mon, 6 Mar 2006 00:49:59 -0500
From Dave Jones <>
Subject Re: Coverity Open Source Defect Scan of Linux

On Sun, Mar 05, 2006 at 09:35:11PM -0800, Ben Chelf wrote:

> Right now, we're guarding access to the actual defects that we report
> for a couple of reasons: (1) We think that you, as developers of Linux,
> should have the chance to look at the defects we find to patch them
> before random other folks get to see what we found and (2) From a
> support perspective, we want to make sure that we have the appropriate
> time to engage with those who want to use the results to fix the code.
> Because of this second point, I'd ask that if you are interested in
> really digging into the results a bit further for your project, please
> have a couple of core maintainers (or group nominated individuals) reach
> out to me to request access. As this is a new process for us and still
> involves a small number of packages, I want to make sure that I
> personally can be involved with the activity that is generated from this
> effort.
>
> So I'm basically asking for people who want to play around with some
> cool new technology to help make source code better. If this interests
> you, please feel free to reach out to me directly. And of course, if
> there are other packages you care about that aren't currently on the
> list, I want to know about those too.

The last time I asked about access to your bug list, I was asked to
sign the equivalent of a non-compete agreement. Is this still in place?

Dave

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Found on linux-kernel

Posted Mar 6, 2006 16:45 UTC (Mon) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

Shortly after that, Dave started posting fixes, so I assume this one got worked out.

Found on linux-kernel

Posted Mar 6, 2006 22:39 UTC (Mon) by davej (subscriber, #354) [Link]

Indeed, it did.

Defect criteria

Posted Mar 6, 2006 23:01 UTC (Mon) by petegn (guest, #847) [Link]

Thas all very well apart from the fact that evry single piece of code can be written in several ways and still achieve the same result .

So that said is it a fault or just another way they had not dreamt up of doing things ..

PS i amnot a programmer but have been around computers long enough to know that there is a lot more than one way of skining a billy goat (Gates)

Pete .

Defect criteria

Posted Mar 7, 2006 7:31 UTC (Tue) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

Yeah, just being "around computers" helps a lot to understand programming. Well, now that I think about it, my boss has been around computers for all of his working career and he knows nil about programming (for him "refactoring" is a four letter word). And my boss's boss, too. And my family. And some of my friends too!

Well, now that I think about it: just being "around computers" does not help when it comes to programming. Please download some -dev packages and start hacking -- it's never too late -- before engaging in meaningful discussions about code. Even some Bash scripting will help a lot to understand how to program.

Sorry for feeding the troll, folks, but it's the first message I read from petegn that does not contain obscenities so I felt compelled to answer.

Defect criteria

Posted Mar 8, 2006 0:50 UTC (Wed) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

But it *does* have more stupid gratuitous Microsoft-bashing. (This example makes even less sense than usual.)