Thanks for clarifying.

The example sentence could also be something like “I would like to notify everyone that I’m aware of this issue and I intend to start tackling it from <insert date> onwards. Allow me to explain the status quo for … (etc. etc.).”. Or whatever sentence you like. The point is not what the exact message is, but an alternative to the absolute radio silence we’ve met.

As for them working on it or not. Clearly, they haven’t worked on it until now. But I don’t understand what was so crucial in the last 8 releases that they couldn’t address this issue instead. Especially, in the aftermath of the XZ utils backdoor. But that’s not the issue I was trying to address with my previous comment. The issue is radio silence. It doesn’t have to set off alarm bells for themselves in order to acknowledge (timely) the concern a chunk of its user base experiences.

If with “it” you refer to Ventoy, then I’d like to inform you that they’ve been doing a good job at maintaining it. They’ve even had multiple releases^[1] since the (original) issue was opened.

I was trying to stir a discussion/conversation: How much can we tolerate from our beloved (F(L))OSS developers? Can they get away with anything as long as they return with some promise?f

The fact remains though: why did they literally go radio silence on this issue for over a year? Like, a simple, “I would like to notify everyone that I’m working on this.” would have been sufficient. Was that too much to ask?

I’ll try to keep it brief/concise/short. Apologies if this makes me come across as abrasive in the process.

If I’d attempt to distill the point(s) in your reply, I’d come to:

• You want to uphold the respect and good will (F(L))OSS developers absolutely deserve for doing the thankless work and effort they put. I’m with you on this. The only difference could be that I’m actively trying to uphold a standard^[1] for this and applying that (subjective) standard here. That’s also why I asked you questions^[2] to understand your standard in hopes of coming to a mutual understanding or at least a better understanding of each other.
• Insinuating that I might have some anti-Chinese bias (or something). Honestly, I didn’t want to go over this as I deliberately skipped a lot of other points (like implying that enterprise level code is somehow better, ignoring the fact that binary blobs go completely against the spirit of (F(L))OSS, ignoring that Ventoy -however small of a project you may view it- has a unique position for malicious use or somehow implying that big corpo software is more interesting to be targeted) that I didn’t deem worth discussing here. I hope you understand why I couldn’t ignore this (possible) ‘allegation’. I’ll keep it brief, though: No, it being supposedly by a person that knows Chinese doesn’t even remotely affect my judgement and/or evaluation. I find it distasteful/appalling that that’s even considered. But I thank you for laying your cards in this respect as this will help to move on to the actual meat of the conversation.

The guy is trying to address the issue and he is building this in his free time. Give him some credit at least, I am sure this is consuming a lot of his free time.

Fam, you’ve chosen to trust them for reasons that are unclear to me. Honestly, I don’t see anything (yet) that would clear their name. For all we know, they could have ties to some intelligence agency; which the infamous Jia Tan has (retroactively) been accused of as well.

I personally find this Ventoy an amazing piece of software

That’s not the issue. I’ve also made plenty use of it in the past. But at what point do you start to second guess the intent behind the maintainer?

he also seems to be willing to address the issue and be more transparent in the future which is also commendable.

Again, arguably too little too late. They literally ghosted the issue for over a year. Then, within 24 hours of possible proof of malicious code, they appear and (perhaps) “pose the image” of putting in a gargantuan effort to resolve the issue. But, like, where were they for a year? Furthermore, the hints of justifications for their actions are simply not up too par.

Don’t get me wrong. As I clearly hinted at it in my previous comment, if they pull through and provide/produce (bit-by-bit) reproducible builds of Ventoy^[1], then I obviously have no qualms against them or their software. Why would I? But until then, I will steer clear.

What should have happened for you to be more concerned?

Perhaps I’m too skeptical and/or have trust issues, but isn’t this too little too late? This issue had been ignored for so long, but -suddenly- within 24 hours of this very peculiar find^[1], Ventoys maintainer goes into full damage-control mode. Should we just accept that?

Sorry, at least for now, I simply don’t buy it.