systemd-stable and Debian's systemd release strategy

[tok]

Apologies, was not subscribed previously but would also seek the input 
of systemd-devel on the matter below.

Regards, tok


On 18.01.23 10:05, tok wrote:
> Hi,
>
> This is not meant as blame but I sincerely would like to understand the mechanisms/approach and apparent complexities behind it: I was wondering if anyone could shed some light on Debian's strategy of releasing systemd packages?
>
> Commendably, the systemd project maintains a dedicated repository (systemd-stable) for stable branches with backported patches available to all distros, but apparently the Debian project is not leveraging this to its advantage:
>
> Current version in Debian stable:
> 247.3-7+deb11u1 (March 2022)
> Latest version of this major release in systemd-stable:
> 247.13 (Dec 2022, 10 minor versions ahead)
>
> Current version in Debian backports:
> 251.3-1~bpo11+1 (Aug 2022)
> Latest version of this major release in systemd-stable:
> 251.10 (Dec 2022, 7 minor versions ahead)
>
>
> What is the reason for this gap? I understand package maintaining is a challenging task, especially for something complex like systemd. But would the systemd-stable repo not provide already a lot of groundwork (as in: backporting bugfixes) for this, to reduce the effort?
>
> Thanks for insights, regards,
> tok