Maintaining a custom out-of-tree patched Debian kernel for specific hardware

[Kumar Appaiah <a.kumar@alumni.iitm.ac.in>]

Dear Debian Developers,

I am part of a team working on getting Debian on low cost laptops (see
http://www.rdp.in for details) so that they can be sold with Debian
preinstalled. While vanilla Debian largely works, unfortunately,
making Bluetooth and sound work require kernel rebuilding. The patches
and config changes are not likely to be upstreamed any time soon, so
we would have to ship the laptop with a patched (non-Debian
kernel). Our team is, thus, taking up the responsibility of ensuring
that up-to-date kernel (with security fixes) are made available to the
users of our laptop. The patches and configs are adapted from here:
https://github.com/sundarnagarajan/kernel_build

The unfortunate situation is that I am forced to issue this patched
kernel. Since I'd like to be a good citizen of the ecosystem, I'd like
to outline the solution I have in mind. I'd like your opinion and
suggestion on this. All code being developed for this purpose will be
released under a DFSG compliant license, and all packages I refer to
that aren't in Debian will lie in our custom (outside of Debian)
repository. If there are any things I can do to make things better,
please do let me know.

1. The laptop will ship with stretch preinstalled, but with a custom
kernel built using the linux-source-x.xx.xx package with a custom
version number, such as linux-image-4.14.13-iitb-amd64.

2. The installation will contain a package called
linux-image-iitb-amd64 that conflicts with linux-image-amd64, and this
package will depend on the latest patched kernel built in the previous
step.

3. The sources.list on the installation will have an entry pointing to
my custom repository in addition to the regular http://deb.debian.org,
and will be pinned so that the kernel and kernel related packages are
obtained from my custom repository. Needless to say, the custom
repository's public key will also be pre-shipped with the laptop.

4. Users will be made aware of the fact that this is Debian with a
custom kernel without ambiguity.

Now, whenever there is a kernel update in Debian, our team will fetch
the source of the updated kernel, patch, rebuild and make it available
in our repository.

Please let me know if the proposed solution is good, else I am open to
suggestions.

Thanks.

Kumar
-- 
Computers are like air conditioners.  Both stop working, if you open windows.
		-- Adam Heath