[Python-Dev] Our responsibilities (was Re: BDFL ruling request: should we block forever waiting for high-quality random bits?)

[Theodore Ts'o]

On Thu, Jun 16, 2016 at 03:24:33PM +0300, Barry Warsaw wrote:
> Except that I disagree.  I think os.urandom's original intent, as documented
> in Python 3.4, is to provide a thin layer over /dev/urandom, with all that
> implies, and with the documented quality caveats.  I know as a Linux developer
> that if I need to know the details of that, I can `man urandom` and read the
> gory details.  In Python 3.5, I can't do that any more.

If Python were to document os.urandom as providing a thin wrapper over
/dev/urandom as implemented on Linux, and also document os.getrandom
as providing a thin wrapper over getrandom(2) as implemented on Linux.
And then say that the best emulation of those two interfaces will be
provided say that on other operating systems, and that today the best
practice is to call getrandom with the flags set to zero (or defaulted
out), that would certainly make me very happy.

I could imagine that some people might complain that it is too
Linux-centric, or it is not adhering to Python's design principles,
but it makes a lot sense of me as a Linux person.  :-)

Cheers,

						- Ted