Filed under: Humor, UNIX / BSD
The 25-year-old BSD bug
Today in 1983, "Beat It" by Michael Jackson may have topped the charts, but a slight bug in the *dir() library was found only a few days ago by OpenBSD developer Marc Balmer (no rela -- oh, wait). OS News has the entire amusing tale of the bug in BSD (the UNIX foundation of Mac OS X) that's been alive and kicking for nearly 25 years. Balmer contacted Marshall Kirk McKusick, the original developer of the *dir() library, who confirmed the error.
Thankfully, the fix was simple, but Balmer kidded, "[s]orry that it took us almost 25 years to fix it."
Thanks, Cameron!
Get a WordPress.com Blog
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Blaktornado said 9:10AM on 5-13-2008
Awww what a cute ladybird.
Reply
Rhywun said 2:02PM on 5-13-2008
That bug is either really enormous (i.e. not so cute), or that's a tiny apple. Or it's fake!
Chris said 9:29AM on 5-13-2008
So, assuming the bug was not entirely trivial, which is more embarrassing: that it took 25 years to find it, or that the functionality affected is so useless that no one had seriously used it in 25 years?
Otherwise I agree with Blaktornado :-)
BTW, if I'm showing my ignorance of BSD here and this *dir() library is important, please let me know (like I need to ask!). If that's the case however, was the bug really that serious?
http://about8.blogspot.com
Reply
matthew said 9:30AM on 5-13-2008
Small correction: I believe his name is Marc Balmer with a c, not Mark with a k.
Reply
Robert Palmer said 9:56AM on 5-13-2008
Thanks Matthew -- good catch. :)
Kev Orng said 11:01AM on 5-13-2008
You should have used a picture of one of those nasty mutant orange Asian ladybugs that bite.
I hate those guys
Reply
firefirepantsareliars said 11:44AM on 5-13-2008
The thing is, the Samba guys (networking, not dance) already pointed the bug out to the folks working on BSD a while ago. At the time the BSD guys were pretty much, "Yeah, sure, whatever," so the Samba team already had a workaround for it. So, -1 for the BSD folks, +1 for the Samba folks, and +1 for Marc Balmer.
Reply