Re: Updates to linux-firmware
Hello there Mark,
thanks for your email, and for the followup ping; weeks are well-filled with
$job, baby and other involvements.
Regarding firmware-nonfree updates, I have related my last-years' experience
on d-devel: https://lists.debian.org/msgid-search/2390124.3VsfAaAtOV@turnagra
I insist: I am absolutely not implying that Ben is doing anything wrong; I
just observed that he was mostly alone in a bottleneck position for that
package.
What I did back then to try to help getting the firmware package in better
shape was to dive in the (complex) packaging and try to produce "ready-to-
merge" merge-requests for new upstream releases, fixes, etc, then pinging Ben
at (what I considered) reasonable intervals. I see that Diederik (CC'ed) has
started to do the same for recent versions.
The package is complex and a mined land of legal concerns, the upstream repo
needs repacking, and the (upstream & debian/) repositories are split; I have
not found this a very pleasant experience, sadly. And again; no-one to blame
here: there _is_ tooling to help, and immense work has been put towards making
this manageable! I'm merely saying it's not a matter of running "debian/rules
get-new-upstream" at all.
From where I sit (that is: I only modestly contributed in the past, and cannot
commit to much these days), there are two angles to address:
A) lift the bottleneck: there needs to be more Debian Developers confident to
comment and merge MRs, and then upload.
B) regular commitment: I feel it would be easier to get regular updates
merged, rather than doing the huge batch shortly before release; that would
also appease the tensions that many probably feel when they get new hardware
but no available package.
As to how I can get involved in any of the above; I can't reasonably add this
to my plate these days (and would rather _not do_, than commit to do and
fail).
But I wonder if some financial sponsorship (if Lenovo and others would be open
to something like that) could help, via Freexian for example (disclaimer: not
for me to do it; I'm not a Freexian person). I'd be concerned that this would
only solve B above though. It would feel like a 1-2 hours job / week.
I hope the above helps you navigate that question, and that it helps the
situation in general.
Best,
Didier
Le vendredi, 26 avril 2024, 20.35:41 h CEST Mark Pearson a écrit :
> Hi Didier & Ben,
>
> I hope all is well.
> I wanted to check in with you guys, as with the new 2024 platforms coming
> out there are some updates to linux-firmware - for CPU, GPU, Wifi,
> Bluetooth, etc devices
>
> I checked and it looked like firmware-nonfree and it hadn't been updated
> since last year - and I wondered if that is something I can help with? I'd
> like to make sure the Debian experience on this years platforms is good
> out-of-the-box.
>
> Let me know if that would be helpful, and any pointers on how best to
> contribute and be useful
>
> Thanks
> Mark
>
> PS - in case anyone notices, I've mothballed my old markpearson@lenovo.com
> address because the Lenovo outlook servers there became horribly unusable.
> I am using my personal domain for open source collaboration instead. I
> still have access to that address (if anybody wants to check I am who I say
> I am) and am still employed at Lenovo (if that makes any difference to
> anything)
--
OdyX
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