[Pkg-xen-devel] Uploading Xen 4.16 for Debian unstable

[Hans van Kranenburg]

Hi all,

I intend to do the Debian unstable upload of Xen 4.16 shortly, probably 
during the upcoming weekend.

Xen 4.16 has been staged in Debian experimental recently. We passed the 
NEW queue again because of the new versioned package names. The buildds 
responded in a happy manner when building it for the archs that we don't 
automatically test beforehand (yet).

The unstable upload will be the same thing as what's in experimental 
now, but with the upstream code advanced to the latest update in the 
upstream stable-4.16 branch, so, also including the fixes for the recent 
XSAs.

Having Xen 4.16 in Debian unstable will mean the moment is there when we 
'decouple' (un)stable and are able to start making changes to the 
packaging for Debian 12 (Bookworm).

As you might have noticed, while Xen versions in Debian stable and 
unstable are still the same, we choose to do work once. So, first do a 
Debian unstable update, and then the security update or next stable 
point release version will be the same thing with (currently) ~deb11u1 
appended. Because of the fact that the upstream Xen Project maintains 
stable branch lines, which only contain important bug fixes and security 
updates, we're allowed to also follow those in Debian stable. Other 
examples for this way of working are e.g. the Linux kernel and 
PostgreSQL, where you can see the same thing happening.

Xen 4.14 in Debian 11 (Bullseye) will keep receiving updates (either 
through the security channel or using the stable point releases) until 
upstream security support ends, which is at Jul 24th, 2023. At that 
point, all users really should have completed the work for doing 
upgrades to the (at that point) current stable Debian release.

The "Debian Xen Team" is not a scary thing. When you show up with ideas 
and when you're actually able to do any kind of work to help and make 
the ideas happen, or implement improvements, and participate in, and 
contribute to the way we're working together, then you're part of the 
team. It's as simple as that.

Currently, we primarily organize ourselves using the #debian-xen IRC 
channel on OFTC. Feel free to join and ask things, give feedback, follow 
along and think of something that you want to participate in. Be it 
helping to solve some weird BTS bug or expressing ideas and helping with 
larger changes.

Current Uploaders of src:xen are Ian Jackson (DD, Debian Developer) who 
after an awful lot of years of working at the upstream Xen Project 
recently switched jobs and keeps being around to help (yay!). I'm a DM, 
'Debian Maintainer', which means that Ian can grant me access to do 
src:xen uploads myself.

Feel free to respond to this message (reply or reply-list) with your 
thoughts and experiences.

Have fun,
Hans van Kranenburg (Knorrie)