[PATCH] Documentation: insist on the plain-text requirement for security reports
From: Willy Tarreau
Date: Sat Nov 29 2025 - 09:18:58 EST
As the trend of AI-generated reports is growing, the trend of unreadable
reports in gimmicky formats is following, and we cannot request that
developers rely on online viewers to be able to read a security report
full for formatting tags. Let's just insist on the plain text requirement
a bit more.
Signed-off-by: Willy Tarreau <w@xxxxxx>
---
Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst | 6 +++++-
1 file changed, 5 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)
diff --git a/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst b/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
index 84657e7d2e5b..c0cf93e11565 100644
--- a/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
+++ b/Documentation/process/security-bugs.rst
@@ -33,12 +33,16 @@ that can speed up the process considerably. It is possible that the
security team will bring in extra help from area maintainers to
understand and fix the security vulnerability.
-Please send plain text emails without attachments where possible.
+Please send **plain text** emails without attachments where possible.
It is much harder to have a context-quoted discussion about a complex
issue if all the details are hidden away in attachments. Think of it like a
:doc:`regular patch submission <../process/submitting-patches>`
(even if you don't have a patch yet): describe the problem and impact, list
reproduction steps, and follow it with a proposed fix, all in plain text.
+Markdown, HTML and RST formatted reports are particularly frowned upon since
+they're quite hard to read for humans and encourage to use dedicated viewers,
+sometimes online, which by definition is not acceptable for a confidential
+security report.
Disclosure and embargoed information
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2.17.5