[Qemu-devel] RFC: changing ROM bundling in tar dists for releases

[Daniel P. Berrange]

A while back now I posted an RFC patch that changes qemu-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2
archive to *not* have any ROMs or 3rd party libs bundled, and create a
new dist qemu-bundled-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 for the fully bundled dist:

  http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-04/msg03335.html

With 2.10 out of the way, and KVM Forum approaching, I figure now is
a reasonable time to revive the idea to see if it has support

The core issues I'm aiming to solve are:

 - Distro vendors don't want the bundled ROMs / libs. They want to
   fully build everything from source to ensure they are distributing
   clean soure & builds in compliance with the licenses. Currently they
   strip bundled bits from the build tree, but would prefer if the source
   dist did not have them either.

 - The qemu release dists get ever larger as we add more ROMS. Adding
   EFI ROM builds for i386, x86_64, and aarch64 will make the dists
   larger still.

There are the following options I see

  1. Keep existing dist, and add a new minimal one

       qemu-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - qemu source + bundled ROMS + libs
       qemu-minimal-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - qemu source only

     Least impact for current non-distro users, distros just switch.

  2. Change existing dist, and add a new one with everything

       qemu-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - qemu source only
       qemu-full-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - qemu source + bundled ROMS + libs

     Non-distro users need to download a different dist from what they
     have known previously, but otherwise unchanged build process.

  3. Change existing dist, and add a new one with bundled bits

       qemu-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - qemu source only
       qemu-addons-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - bundled ROMS + libs

     Non-distro users need to manually download & install an
     extra piece compared to now.

  4. Change existing dist, never distribute bundled ROMs + libs at all

       qemu-X.Y.Z.tar.bz2 - qemu source only

     Only here for completeness, not a serious suggestion

  5. Change nothing

     Continue ignoring the problem I aim to solve.


My patch did option 2, but I really open to any of 1/2/3 without a
strong preference, as long as we can get some agreement on one. I
guess option 1 might be easiest to get agreement on given its minimal
impact.

Regards,
Daniel
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