autobuilding src:nvidia-* [non-free]

[Russ Allbery]

Philipp Kern <pkern at debian.org> writes:

> Copying debian-release@ and debian-kernel@ on what they think. To
> provide context (it seems that pkg-nvidia-devel@ dropped my mails or put
> it into a queue, hence they're not in a list archive):

Sorry, they're all approved now.  We get unbelievable amounts of spam, so
the list moderates messages from people who aren't subscribed with the
normal whitelisting for Debian administrative mail, and sometimes I don't
get to that right away (like this time).  The folks participating in this
thread are also now whitelisted.

> nvidia-graphics-modules seems to be the last package to provide
> pre-built kernel modules. Do we still want this for wheezy given the
> maintenance hassle if there's an ABI bump? Or is an ABI bump
> (e.g. through a security update) completely unlikely for wheezy, given
> that we managed to keep squeeze stable?

I've personally dropped the non-dkms methods from the other package that I
have with kernel modules, but I'll note in defense of providing prebuilt
modules that it's somewhat simpler for users and the non-free video
drivers are often used by the least sophisticated Debian users.  What
Andreas has been doing, which I think is fairly reasonable, is keeping
them out of testing until shortly before the freeze and then updating them
for the freeze, which means only doing new uploads for ABI changes that
happen during the freeze or in stable (relatively rare).

-- 
Russ Allbery (rra at debian.org)               <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>