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Date: Mon, 25 Sep 2023 21:23:34 +0200
From: Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com>
To: oss-security@...ts.openwall.com
Subject: Re: illumos (or at least danmcd) membership in the distros list

On Mon, Sep 25, 2023 at 02:48:45PM +0000, Dan McDonald wrote:
> On Sep 22, 2023, at 5:40 PM, Solar Designer <solar@...nwall.com> wrote:
> > 
> > So I think we can accept OmniOS as new distros list member, if that's
> > desired and Dan would represent OmniOS on the list.  This subscription
> > on its own would not allow sharing of info with other illumos distros.
> 
> I've just consulted with one of the OmniOS leaders, and OmniOS is okay with me
> being able to join the list on their behalf.
> 
> > In special cases, Dan would be able to ask the issue reporters their
> > explicit permission to share with other illumos distros.
> 
> I will be judicious here.
> 
> > If those distros do typically need the info, they may request direct
> > list membership.
> > 
> > How does this sound to you, Dan?
> 
> I accept.

Great.  I've just subscribed Dan to the distros list (Dan provided the
key to me off-list).

Dan, although not strictly required, are there any contributing-back
task(s) you'd help with? -

https://oss-security.openwall.org/wiki/mailing-lists/distros#contributing-back

Most tasks requiring list membership are best handled by someone on
linux-distros (so that the member distro sees all issues, including
Linux-only ones), but I've recently added some to:

Administrative tasks mostly unrelated to (linux-)distros lists (but
relevant to the wider community)

1. Help ensure that each message posted to oss-security contains the
most essential information (e.g., vulnerability detail and/or exploit)
directly in the message itself (and in plain text) rather than only by
reference to an external resource, and add the missing information
(e.g., in your own words, by quoting with proper attribution, and/or by
creating and attaching a properly attributed text/plain export of a
previously referenced web page) and remind the original sender of this
requirement (for further occasions) in a "reply" posting when necessary
- primary: Oracle Solaris, backup: Container-Optimized OS

2. Develop tools to help with the above (crawl URLs in messages and
produce draft follow-ups for manual editing+posting)

3. Monitor for Open Source security issues/topics published elsewhere,
identify which of these would fit, and bring them to oss-security

4. Develop tools to help with the above (automatically monitor Open
Source projects' and other relevant third-party mailing lists, websites,
social media, source code repositories, releases for likely Open Source
security issues/topics)

5. Directly encourage upstreams, researchers, umbrella organizations,
packagers, distros, etc. to report to the lists

6. Suggest and provide examples of quality improvements for such reports
(beyond them containing the most essential information)

7. Set up and maintain more reliable oss-security Twitter/Mastodon
feed(s) (the existing Twitter feed occasionally misses messages)

8. Set up and maintain new curated "best of oss-security"
Twitter/Mastodon feed(s)

Out of these, items 1 and 3 existed before, and I see Alan Coopersmith
from Oracle Solaris help with item 3 (thank you, Alan!), e.g.:

https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/07/27/1
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/06/20/6
https://www.openwall.com/lists/oss-security/2023/04/12/4

but somehow not with item 1 - maybe it's some confusion, which we should
correct?  I don't recall Container-Optimized OS actually doing anything
on item 1, where they're backup.  Please correct me if I'm wrong (just
didn't notice/recall something).  Maybe we should free item 1 up for new
volunteers now.

For many of these, the primary/backup notion doesn't fully apply -
there's simply enough work for more than one volunteer person/team.

If anyone wants to help with any of these, please reply.

Alexander

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