Re: proposal: kernel team IRC meeting on Saturday, 30th September 16:00 UTC

[Sven Luther <sven.luther@wanadoo.fr>]

On Sun, Sep 24, 2006 at 11:42:48AM -0400, Nathanael Nerode wrote:
> Frederik Schueler wrote:
> 
> > Hello,
> > 
> > I would like to propose an IRC meeting for all kernel team members, to
> > discuss where we stand and what we want to do in the future, concerning
> > kernel firmwares.
> 
> Or, you could get the damn tg3 patches into Debian's kernel already.  It
> would prove that you actually are interested in trying to follow the SC,
> which would get some of us off your back and back to writing firmware
> loading code.  :-)

Or you could also help us on this in making sure the tg3 patch in question is
upstream-quality, and thus putting work where your mouth is. You sure seem to
care enough and have time enough to work on this.

But the reality is :

  1) we don't have really the time and tranquility to fix these issues for
  etch.

  2) a complete solution, including upstream-quality patches, submission and
  acceptance in upstream, support not only in the kernel, but the rest of
  debian, most prominently d-i, etc, will take time, and will much better be
  implemented in etch+1.

Thus, what is currently happening is a compromise.

We plan to chip the upstream kernel un-pruned for etch, it will be a regresion
in some cases, but those are minimal, and will be better in some others, like
the qlogic case. Given the timeframe (the kernel was supposedly frozen in
early august), and the time remaining for the release (a bit over 2 month),
there is no way a complete solution can be done for etch. But we have every
intention to work on this for etch+1, each in his own part.

Now, this is a compromise, and we ask of you and your fellow
removal-of-non-free-firmware supporters, that you bear with us on this for the
etch release, and work together with us to solve it as it should for etch+1.
Is this too much to ask you ? I don't think so. Will having lengthy and
uneeded flamewars over this help in any way ? I don't think so, it will only
delay any work going to happen on this as we all have to lose time reading and
writing a bunch of mails.

So, please face reality, it is too late for etch, we also wanted to have it
done, but altough we have done much for the kernel since sarge, we were not
able to complete the full plan. But this is no major problem, so let's accept
the current status-quo, and work on making it better for etch+1.

Friendly,

Sven Luther