Comment by aeleos
9 years ago
It wouldn't be a big deal if this was just software, but the fact that Intel allowed a PROCESSOR bug to be reported, tested, and fixed without telling anyone that the bug actually exists is honestly horrible. You can't just let CPU bugs under the run since it can throw the stability and reliability of the entire system into question. The people that reported it shouldn't have to dig through Intel microcode updates and test different fixes to see if the bug they found was fixed. Hardware manufacturers (especially processor manufacturers) need to be held to a higher standard when it comes to bug reporting and this kind of behavior really has no excuse.
> Intel allowed a PROCESSOR bug to be reported, tested, and fixed without telling anyone that the bug actually exists
That's just not true. Intel published the erratum in April: https://www3.intel.com/content/dam/www/public/us/en/document... - search for SKL150. It was also clearly noted in Debian's intel-microcode changelog on May 15: http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs/non-free/i/...
They absolutely should have followed up to the OCaml people's support ticket. But sloppy followup is an issue that every large project encounters.
It's an excuse that is commonly given - but easily avoidable if you care enough about the ones that pay your salary by buying processors from your company.
And not only that, but they did much more than the average Joe and essentially pin-pointed the issue for them. So yeah, inexcusable it is.
Do we have any evidence that that's where Intel even learned about the bug?
I agree. It's totally possible that Intel found the bug in another bug report, fixed it, closed that bug report, and never realized that the OCaml bug was related.