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El Reg reports
Microsoft had to emit a hasty update for its R Open analysis tool after developers found the open-source package was not playing nice with some Linux systems.
The issue was brought to light earlier this week by developer Norbert Preining, who found[1] that the Debian GNU/Linux version of Open R[2]--Microsoft's open-source implementation of the R statistics and data science tool--was causing headaches when it was installed on some systems.
In particular, Preining noted that the shell instructions Microsoft used to install the software would fail on a computer where another version of R is already installed. Worse, the script would delete whatever is at /bin/sh and override it with Bash, changing the system's command interpreter.
[...] Additionally, Preining found, the script Microsoft used to uninstall R Open would cause further problems, one being that it would delete files without checking where they actually pointed
[...] Fortunately, it looks as though Redmond was listening, and Microsoft's dev team was quick to act. Within two days of Preining's blog post going up, he reported that R Open had been patched by the Windows giant to resolve the issues and properly install and remove itself on Debian systems.
"Thanks Microsoft for the quick fix, it is good news that those playing with Open R will not be left with a hosed system", Preining noted.
[1] Text highlighting and scrollwheel scrolling on the page work now. Mouse actions were broken June 13. (Scrolling was mentioned down in the comments there.)
[2] Content is behind scripts.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by driverless on Friday June 15 2018, @12:56PM (2 children)
It's a simple programming mistake, not some conspiracy by MS. Years ago nn, an otherwise excellent news reader, had the cute feature that if some shell variable got unset then an rm of $some_path_or_other/* became an rm of ./*. I remember going though some of the scripts it ran and finding quite a few places where this could happen when the contents of my $home disappeared after firing up nn one day. I wouldn't be surprised if things like this were hidden all over various programs, it's only the fact that it happened to MS that makes this one newsworthy.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 15 2018, @02:04PM
That's happened in Steam also.
The difference is that this case did not involve any variable. It plain and simple did:
rm /bin/sh
ln -s /bin/bash /bin/sh
No variable, no weird edge cases, no mistake. It's either willful destruction of the target system or incompetence. Probably the latter, but I doubt Microsoft would admit that even when given that choice.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday June 17 2018, @06:51PM
> It's a simple programming mistake, not some conspiracy by MS.
"DOS ain't done till Lotus won't run."
Account abandoned.