Hi Martin, Santiago, Jose, On Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 05:32:36PM +0200, Martin-Éric Racine wrote: > We request assistance with maintaining the ifupdown package.
I'd be happy to adopt ifupdown as sole Maintainer with a very collaborative mindset. The way I see it the package needs strong technical direction due to the enormity of the problem space it's trying to solve: Networking. While the ifupdown code as-such isn't technically difficult. It being an itegration point for a lot of tech generates friction that manifests as outsized maintanance burdon relative to it's (LoC) size. IMO switching to a team-maintanance model here *without* *first* doing the work of *building* a strong team with a shared technical vision was a strategic mistake that's just going to lead to infighting. We should revert it. I agree with Santiago, we should move towards ifupdown-ng, but I don't want to do that until we have a really good understanding of the problem space and whether ifupdown's model truly does solve enough of it to be useful in the modern world. Keeping traditional ifupdown alive will help me get some of that understanding. The rest of it I plan to get by talking to people at NOG groups, Linux, Debian, FLOSS and chaos events I'm actively attending. If we don't understand our users we can't hope to solve their problems. Taking over maintanance and (somewhat implicitly) Debian's default network stack also aligns well with my plans of building a Debian based IPv6-only focused routing appliance with public FLOSS funding. If that goes well I'll have the necessary time and attention to devote to it's ongoing maintanance. Perhaps most critically I'm planning on promoting it's use on the public stage to convince more people that the fashionable monolithic designs of today aren't the be-all-end-all they seem to think they are. > At the very least, outstanding bugs with patches need to be triaged, My brain can deal with bug reports going forward mostly fine, but I'm terrible at processing existing piles of work. Alone anyway. We should try to get together at DebCamp or another (virtual?) occation to triage and chew through at least some of the bugs. I've tried in the past and have frankly no idea how to even attack the pile since BTS doesn't even let me sort reports by most recent activity to try and prioritise by user interest/pain and it took me way to long to realise I should probably sub to ifupdown in PTS (story of my Debian career ;D). > and the command options we pass to the new default DHCP client > (dhcpcd-base) have to be tweaked on time for the Trixie release. IMO we still have some patching work on dhcpcd to do to really make the integration and upgrade story air tight, unless you have specific changes in mind already that would take care of things? Frankly as soon as I'm empowered to just make the necessary changes I'm happy to do it. I have plenty of Debian events and time lined up before the Soft Freeze still, but I don't want to do it if I have to fight over every technical decision I make. On Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 06:42:03PM -0600, Josue Ortega wrote: > > The primary maintainer (josue) is essentially MIA > > Well, I'm not MIA Good to know you're still around Josue :-). > never having the time or energy to get to ifupdown. Don't feel bad about it. Interest and motivation ebbs and flows. > > At the very least, outstanding bugs with patches need to be triaged > > I'll try to work on this over the weekend but I don´t promise anything, > if someone wants to step in please do! IMO You shouldn't feel like you have to. I'd just be happy for input on any particularly jucy/difficult bugs, maybe major overall problems you think need addressing and the like. --Daniel
signature.asc
Description: PGP signature
