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If they didn't understand the implications (read: unintended consequences) then they couldn't know this could cause harm. What were they supposed to do, research shells for 2 weeks? Become expert Linux packagers in two sprints? Just to make an R installer?

And by the way, it isn't even that wrong. /bin/sh is the POSIX Shell Scripting standard and points to an interpreter thereof, of which /bin/bash is one. If a user pointed their system's /bin/sh at a non-POSIX-compatible shell, that's just a broken system. And scripts expecting /bin/sh to use non-POSIX semantics are broken scripts.

The only problem here is you don't know if the system has bash, but any sane person should assume bash exists on a Linux system.




> What were they supposed to do, research shells for 2 weeks? Become expert Linux packagers in two sprints? Just to make an R installer?

Yes? Or don't ship an R installer if you don't know what you're doing.

I don't understand why they're given a pass for shipping a broken installer just because they might be amateurs who don't know what they're doing.

At the end of the day this is a giant well known software corporation that is shipping laughably broken software. If you don't know what you're doing, then you shouldn't be shipping it. I don't care if its an application, an operating system, or an installer.


You do realize that Canonical [Ubuntu] has bricked and destroyed Linux systems with their installers and software updates, right?

Here's Ubuntu 16.04 bricking systems with patches: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/meltdown-and-...

Debian's updates causing PowerPC platforms to see random crashes and data corruption: https://news.softpedia.com/news/latest-debian-stretch-kernel...

Here's Ubuntu 17.10 bricking Lenovo, Toshiba and Acer laptops: https://itsfoss.com/ubuntu-17-10-bios-bug/

There are many open source vendors which ship shitty installers. In fact, virtually every software vendor I have ever used has had a shitty installer, if they even provide one. I don't think your idealistic position on software release reflects reality.


> research shells for 2 weeks?

This has been a known bug since November 2016, which was supposed to be fixed for version 3.3.3.

* https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17293450


In light of that information, they may be incompetent assholes. But the bug doesn't do enough to inform the devs of the extent of the problem, the severity of the consequences, or a range of solutions. Still, they obviously should have fixed it by now.

I'm still not blaming all of Microsoft for this one dev team's screw-up, though.




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