Re: Adding packages with vulnerabilities (was Re: [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add perl-net-psyc. [pcre])

[ludo@gnu.org (Ludovic Courtès)]

Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> skribis:

> On Thu, Sep 29, 2016 at 08:58:29AM +0000, ng0 wrote:
>> Leo Famulari <leo@famulari.name> writes:
>> > On Wed, Sep 21, 2016 at 06:46:31PM +0000, ng0 wrote:
>> >> Subject: [PATCH 1/2] gnu: Add psyclpc.
>> >> 
>> >> * gnu/packages/psyc.scm (psyclpc): New variable.
>
>> >> +    (inputs
>> >> +     `(("zlib" ,zlib)
>> >> +       ("openssl" ,openssl)))
>> >> +    ;; pcre is bundled to ensure the version is compatible. XXX: look into
>> >> +    ;; unbundling it. Upstream should update from pcre 4.5 to 8.38. For
>> >> +    ;; functionality reasons we can not unbundle it now.
>> >> +    ;; ("pcre" ,pcre)))
>> >
>> > That version of PCRE was released in 2003. We might want to add a
>> > warning to the package description...
>> >
>> > https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=pcre
>> 
>> Update on this: the pcre bundling was inherited from ldmud, current
>> ldmud has unbundled pcre, so we will be able to unbundle pcre.
>> 
>> I'd still like to have the patches in their current form and update
>> psyclpc when the next version without pcre is out.
>
> I'd like some more opinions on this. Should we add this package even
> though we know it contains some security bugs (linked above)?

I don’t think so.

From the comment above, it seems difficult to have this package use a
current version of PCRE, right?  Then I would suggest discussing it with
upstream.  After all, they’re developing network-facing software, so
they’re probably interested in avoiding security issues.

ng0, could you take it with them?

TIA,
Ludo’.