Le lundi, 1 avril 2024, 19.41:45 h CEST Andrey Rakhmatullin a écrit : > Why is updating the firmware packages not trivial? Is it because of > licensing issues? I always thought it's just copying a bunch of files from > the linux-firmware repo (but I also often wondered why is the package > often not up to date).
My recollection, after getting some MRs merged in the firmware-nonfree package
last cycle (oh, a year gone already), is that it's a mix of:
* the maintainers in position to review, then merge the proposed changes are
few, and have plenty on their hands;
* firmware packages seem to have lower priority during the development cycle,
in favour of larger updated shortly-before (or during) the freeze;
* upstream and Debian (maintainers) are not in complete agreement on what can,
or should be shipped in packages; from README.source:
> Also, some of its contents are not clearly redistributable, and some are
> obsolete for Debian's purposes.
So almost every file addition needs a careful `git log` review to check for
origin, updates, reasoning, version strings, etc. Unless there's tooling I
have not found; it's tedious, error-prone (and not very interesting) work
(although quite arguably necessary).
* packaging is very smart, but peculiar (or at least, quite different to what
I had been used to before I touched it). Despite good documentation, it's
quite a steep intro for newcomers.
All-in-all, I think it's an all-too-classical case of "we don't have enough
humanpower for the job we set out to do". Add a team of motivated individuals
to gain the confidence of the existing "already-plenty-on-their-plates
maintainers", to then maintain the package on their own. Oh, wait…
--
OdyX
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