> We are sorry for the harm we've caused by our unethical experimentation involving members of the Linux community. In accordance with community standards and a desire to avoid benefiting from our ethical failure, we have requested the immediate retraction of the papers and other published work resulting from this unethical experimentation. We are also working together with our institutional leadership to address the systemic and individual failings which permitted this unethical research to take place. As a result of this, we will publicly prepare a report regarding the actions taken and potential systemic changes which will ensure these actions do not reoccur and further harm is not caused. Out of an abundance of caution and because experience has shown our judgement, as is, to be questionable, no further research similar in nature to the research in question will be undertaken by this institution or these researchers until proper community consultation has taken place regarding the report and proposed changes to systemic review are implemented. Once again, we take full responsibility for any harm we have caused and we will work to ensure that such harm never occurs again. We hope that, at some point, we may regain your trust and confidence and, if you'll permit us, to work alongside you.

[signed personally, by every involved researcher, professor, IRB member, and all of the relevant university leadership including the board]

Something like that would do nicely, in my opinion. Then they'd have to absolutely follow through on it. Ideally, they'd also ask involved members of the community so harmed, among other experts, to independently review and watch the process to ensure no further harm is being done, progress is made, and public accountability is kept.

> we did that because we knew we could not ask the maintainers of Linux for permission, or they would be on the lookout for the hypocrite patches.

This bit just reads like "sorry you're upset".

I would have expected something along the lines of "sorry, we should have asked the maintainers and we understand why it was wrong not to", instead of "sorry, we didn't ask the maintainers, but this is why we didn't".

I am not a stakeholder in this, and my comment is about apologies, even though as a lifelong linux user and technologist responsible for deploying it, I still think there should be a real investigation.

While I had a bunch of notes about what makes the sentiment behing an apology meaningful, it's really separate from the issue that this should have been done privately. A public apology is just another thing about them and their message. They're performing and trying to draw in sympathetic members of an imaginary audience. There is no humility in public displays. I would be surprised if anybody asked for it, and doing it without asking is just more of the same type of behavior. There is no such thing as a public apology.

That said, I have no doubt they have suffered personally over this, and have some compassion for that suffering itself, but not sympathy for this performance. There is no gesture that restores trust. When their contributions and acomplishments become more remarkable than this issue, they will have restored it, but like most things, there is no "back" to go to. Maybe that static analyzer will be the ultimate bug finder, as succeeding at that is probably their only out.

It's not so much a question of what they should have put in but what they should have left out. There was an awful lot in there justifying what they did, and relatively little that acknowledged that it was wrong.

They should have addressed why the kernel maintainers felt the way they do. As it is now they are trying to rationalize their actions instead of showing they have made an attempt to understand why their research was questionable.