Re: Core-updates coordination and plans

[Andreas Enge <andreas@enge.fr>]

Hello,

Am Wed, Jan 31, 2024 at 05:44:21PM +0100 schrieb Josselin Poiret:
> One conundrum we have for now: glibc 2.38 has a couple of new CVEs, and
> we have three options:
> 1) change glibc to track the 2.38 release branch → world rebuild.
> 2) graft glibc → bad user experience (and we're not supposed to graft
> outside of master).
> 3) switch to 2.39 → world rebuild + possibly more work fixing new build
> failures.

I would go for whatever fixes the security problems (obviously) and leads
to a faster merge. Probably 1), which, if I understand correctly, means
using a newer point release or git commit of glibc-2.38 that fixes the CVEs
and has a low chance of fundamentally breaking things. Then in the spirit
of feature branches, we could have a feature branch "core-team" (not
"core-updates"!; well, I do not care about the names, but about the mental
idea we attach to them) updating glibc.

2.39 might delay the merge for more months if things do not go well, but
you are probably better placed to judge how big the risks are of a lot
of breakage.

I am also not that worried about world-rebuilds: We should be able to do
a world-rebuild not once or twice a year, but at least every month, say,
or maybe every week. If this is not the case currently, it is an infra-
structure problem that we should try to address. (Relatedly, we should
ungraft more often; there are now packages with over 100 grafts, and in
updating the system behind a fast internet line, grafting ends up taking
a non-negligible proportion of the total time, even on an SSD.)

In any case, thanks for your work on getting things in shape!

Andreas