Subject: bug#43075: Prioritize providing substitutes for security-critical packages with potentially long build times

From: "Dr. Arne Babenhauserheide" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 2020 16:33:00 +0200

zimoun <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Fri, 11 Sep 2020 at 08:56, Ludovic Courtès <[email-masked]> wrote:
>> To me the proposal is more about introducing scheduling priorities.  For
>> these packages, it’s indeed safe to assume that every new release brings
>> security fixes.
>
> Why would some packages be prioritized on the build farm than others?
> Based on what?   Which criteria?

There are two aspects that make ungoogled-chromium, icecat and
linux-libre special:

- long build time
- security critical

If a user cannot run the newest ungoogled-chromium, icecat, or
linux-libre due to too high build times (so it can for example only be
built on a weekend, but not on a weekday when the computer is only
active for a few hours), then this user is prone to be hit by zero-day
vulnerabilities.

So the minimal criterion would be: Protect users from zero-days.

For ungoogled-chromium, icecat, and linux-libre, two factors match:

- the chance is very high that an update fixes a vulnerability, and
- they take so long to build that many users won’t be able to do it
  right away.

I certainly can’t: I cannot update ungoogled-chromium during work-time
because the compile is so heavy on resources, that it considerably slows
down my work.

Best wishes,
Arne
-- 
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heißt politisch sein
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