Hans van Kranenburg
2022-Feb-17 18:55 UTC
[Pkg-xen-devel] Uploading Xen 4.16 for Debian unstable
Hi all, I intend to do the Debian unstable upload of Xen 4.16 shortly, probably during the upcoming weekend. Xen 4.16 has been staged in Debian experimental recently. We passed the NEW queue again because of the new versioned package names. The buildds responded in a happy manner when building it for the archs that we don't automatically test beforehand (yet). The unstable upload will be the same thing as what's in experimental now, but with the upstream code advanced to the latest update in the upstream stable-4.16 branch, so, also including the fixes for the recent XSAs. Having Xen 4.16 in Debian unstable will mean the moment is there when we 'decouple' (un)stable and are able to start making changes to the packaging for Debian 12 (Bookworm). As you might have noticed, while Xen versions in Debian stable and unstable are still the same, we choose to do work once. So, first do a Debian unstable update, and then the security update or next stable point release version will be the same thing with (currently) ~deb11u1 appended. Because of the fact that the upstream Xen Project maintains stable branch lines, which only contain important bug fixes and security updates, we're allowed to also follow those in Debian stable. Other examples for this way of working are e.g. the Linux kernel and PostgreSQL, where you can see the same thing happening. Xen 4.14 in Debian 11 (Bullseye) will keep receiving updates (either through the security channel or using the stable point releases) until upstream security support ends, which is at Jul 24th, 2023. At that point, all users really should have completed the work for doing upgrades to the (at that point) current stable Debian release. The "Debian Xen Team" is not a scary thing. When you show up with ideas and when you're actually able to do any kind of work to help and make the ideas happen, or implement improvements, and participate in, and contribute to the way we're working together, then you're part of the team. It's as simple as that. Currently, we primarily organize ourselves using the #debian-xen IRC channel on OFTC. Feel free to join and ask things, give feedback, follow along and think of something that you want to participate in. Be it helping to solve some weird BTS bug or expressing ideas and helping with larger changes. Current Uploaders of src:xen are Ian Jackson (DD, Debian Developer) who after an awful lot of years of working at the upstream Xen Project recently switched jobs and keeps being around to help (yay!). I'm a DM, 'Debian Maintainer', which means that Ian can grant me access to do src:xen uploads myself. Feel free to respond to this message (reply or reply-list) with your thoughts and experiences. Have fun, Hans van Kranenburg (Knorrie)