bandwidth

[Alexandre Oliva]

Hi, Fraser,

This question is not about FSFLA, but rather about the GNU Linux-libre
project, so I'm adding the project's mailing list to the response, and
keeping info at fsfla.org so that others in that group know the message was
responded.  Please remove info at fsfla.org if you respond to this message.

On Apr  8, 2018, fraser kendall <science at leloft.co.uk> wrote:

> I run linux-libre on eight machines and would like to upgrade them all
> to (custom) latest kernels.  Given the frequency of upgrades, I was
> considering doing this from sources held on a local repository to save
> your bandwidth. Would this be possible? If so, could you give me some
> details as to which source repository you would prefer me to mirror.

The only official source repository we maintain for GNU Linux-libre is
the repository of deblobbing scripts, at
https://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/scripts/ with
branches at
https://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/releases/branches
and tags for upstream releases that required deblobbing changes at
https://www.fsfla.org/svn/fsfla/software/linux-libre/releases/tags

These are Subversion repositories; you can 'svn checkout' any of the
above, and then use the scripts to clean up upstream git tags.


We have plans to maintain deblobbed sources in a git repository, but
we're not quite there yet.  Jason Self maintains an experimental
repository at https://notabug.org/linux-libre/linux-libre.git but its
form is most likely not what we're going to use.  Specifically, its tags
are not signed, and each tag references a commit based on the previous
stable release, in a branch maintained for that stable line.  This makes
it hard to drop incorrectly-deblobbed versions, should we find them.

I think we'll be better off creating each (signed) tag as an initial
commit tag, so that we can keep our history clean of blobs even if we
make mistakes (and then fix them), and no branches (they serve no real
purpose as far as we're concerned).  The repo could also contain the
deblobbing scripts, those probably with branches and tags and whatnot,
and signature files for the tarballs exported from the deblobbed tags,
and perhaps xdeltas, and maybe some form of unidirectional diffs from
the upstream non-Free tag to our deblobbed tag.

> Many Thanks for all your hard work.
> fraser

Thanks for your support!

-- 
Alexandre Oliva, freedom fighter    http://FSFLA.org/~lxoliva/
You must be the change you wish to see in the world. -- Gandhi
Be Free! -- http://FSFLA.org/   FSF Latin America board member
Free Software Evangelist|Red Hat Brasil GNU Toolchain Engineer