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Re: GRUB 2.06


From: Eli Schwartz
Subject: Re: GRUB 2.06
Date: Tue, 20 Apr 2021 16:33:37 -0400

On 4/20/21 1:48 PM, John Paul Adrian Glaubitz wrote:
> I think it's reasonable to expect from a distribution that they
> backport upstream fixes, at least in Debian, openSUSE and Fedora, it
> isn't a problem.

I think it is unreasonable -- backporting upstream fixes is a sign that
upstream software has failed to be usable out of the box, and needs to
release more often.

If a distro is being *forced* to backport 200+ patches, we've officially
entered the Madness Place:

https://build.opensuse.org/package/view_file/Base:System/grub2/grub2.spec
lines 174 - 395 (9 pages of source files, most named 0001?)

https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/grub2/tree/rawhide
carefully numbered list of patches 0001 - 0198

https://salsa.debian.org/grub-team/grub/-/blob/master/debian/patches/series
patch series of 219 patches

...

I'm sorry? Claiming that distros "are capable of backporting, therefore
it's reasonable to expect it is their job to do so" is completely
missing the point.

Claiming that for these distros "it isn't a problem" to roll a patchset
for elaborate backport lists, based on I guess the evidence that they've
done so, unjustly conflates "we like doing this" with "we were forced to
do this with much gnashing of teeth".

I can't point to citations where either one has been said, but I somehow
doubt the former viewpoint is the one distro maintainers are holding.
(Well, I'm given to understand Debian maintainers seem to actively enjoy
having many patches. So I guess I shouldn't be *too* surprised that a
Debian Developer is insisting that people maintain downstream patches.)

"Basically insulting except not outright" a person who would like to see
more frequent (read: any) maintenance releases because I dunno, clearly
they're just irresponsible at running a distro if they're afraid of
importing 200 patches in one go, is kind of really bad.

This is a real problem that grub really has. Whyever that might be a
problem (the standard reason is lack of developer time) can be seen as
forgivable, because software development is hard and all too often
unrewarding, and demanding more releases may not actually be feasible in
practice.

But I'd really, really, really like to NOT see victim blaming and
holding the current state of affairs as some kind of joyous ideal which
must be held sacred, because pooh-pooh anyone who dares post to the list
merely asking if such a thing might be possible -- it's your own darned
job, noob, stop being unreasonable and lern2patch, reasonable distros
will reasonably patch.

(I think it bears mentioning again -- 200+ patches. *200*. At what point
is there more patches than source code?)

...

Anyway, a grub 2.04.1 would have been fantastic 6 months or a year ago.
At this point, people should just use 2.06-rc1, there is not much point
in trying to stabilize a maintenance release in the middle of the
freeze/RC cycle for 2.06 as the same effort is better spent getting 2.06
out the door.

But I'm pretty sure there have been previous threads discussing the hope
of maintenance releases, and a tentative statement by the project
maintainers that they will try to do so going forward.

So hopefully the situation will be better going forward.

-- 
Eli Schwartz
Arch Linux Bug Wrangler and Trusted User

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