[RFC] linux-firmware: pull from commit hash instead of tag

[noarchwastaken]

This would enable faster support for new hardware, and avoid waiting for (possibly) two months just for linux-firmware to tag.

One can ask for hardware support with firmware not tagged yet but present in master, and we can update the commit hash along with the date of the commit to pull in that new firmware.

General

• This is a new package and it conforms to the quality requirements

Have the results of the proposed changes been tested?

• I use the packages affected by the proposed changes on a regular basis and confirm this PR works for me
• I generally don't use the affected packages but briefly tested this PR

[abenson]

I'm not sure. I think in general we prefer to stick to tags.

[ericonr]

I agree with @abenson. If we add this option in order to enable better hw support, I'd rather that the commit hash mode be optional, and we should always favor using the proper tags. Maybe something like _commit=$version and optionally one can change _commit=commit_hash.

[CameronNemo]

firmware is one of the largest updates on some of my systems. Would be a bit annoying if it was constantly bumped.

[fosslinux]

I really don't like grabbing arbitrary commits, which are much more likely to be buggy/unstable. Releases/tags generally exist for a reason, I don't see why linux-firmware is an exception. Also we generally don't package git master versions of packages.

[noarchwastaken]

I really don't like grabbing arbitrary commits, which are much more likely to be buggy/unstable. Releases/tags generally exist for a reason, I don't see why linux-firmware is an exception. Also we generally don't package git master versions of packages.

I do see linux-firmware to be an exception though, it's simply a collection of non-free blobs, and it doesn't seem like that there's a "stabilizing" process anywhere.

[noarchwastaken]

We can also consider backporting important updates instead of pulling from commits:

archlinux/svntogit-packages@efd0038

For example, this commit in Arch linux-firmware backports a bluetooth fix (apparently), enables support for RX 6700 series GPU (which many may buy because there's no choice today anyways) and a computing chip from AMD.

[tibequadorian]

Can this be closed? This PR is very outdated and didn't get much approval either.