How come there's no ethical review for research that interacts with people? (I mean it's there in medicine and psychology, and probably for many economics experiments too.)

edit: oh, it seems they got an exemption, because it's software research - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26890084 :|

This is actually just the elitist version of "it's just a prank, bro!"

And you're right, bugs in the linux kernel could have serious consequences.

Any organization that would deploy software that could kill someone without carefully personally reviewing it for fitness of purpose especially when the candidate software states that it waives all liability and waives any guarantee that it is fit for purpose as stated in sections 11 and 12 of the GPLv2 [1] is criminally irresponsible. Though it is scummy to deliberately introduce defects into a OSS project, any defects that result in a failure to perform are both ethically and legally completely on whoever is using Linux in a capacity that can cost billions of dollars or kill someone.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.en.html

I agree, I think a more broad ban might be in order. I don't know that I'd want anyone from this "group" contributing to anything.

So aren’t there tests and code reviews before pushing them to the Stable code base?

I agree that it's bad behavior, but if you have billions of dollars resting on open-source infrastructure, you better know the liabilities involved.

It’s just a shame there is no mechanism in the license to withdraw permission for this so-called university to use Linux at all