Hi, Recently the way kernel sources are retrieved was changed in the linux package [1]. Now the sources are fetched from https://github.com/archlinux/linux. I see a few problems with this: - Previously the list of applied patches was very transparent. You could immediately see that the kernel and kernel patch tarballs come from kernel.org, and view individual extra patches. Now the code comes from a non-kernel source, and cannot be verified as easily. - Previously, if a new kernel version is released and is not yet in the repos, you could more or less take the official linux PKGBUILD, change one number and build it yourself. With the new layout it is not clear how to achieve this. - An often cited Arch policy is to use software as released by upstream with minimal patching. What becomes of this policy if one of the core packages builds from a technical fork instead of upstream? If the patches from kernel.org will no longer be signed, as announced in [2], then an alternative would be git tags from [3] and [4]. It's understandable if it may make development harder, nonetheless it would allow for better transparency and follow upstream closer — just one user's opinion. [1] https://git.archlinux.org/svntogit/packages.git/commit/trunk?h=packages/linux&id=d0c4ab0716e0ae1fc058a83ccb02bde92885ced6 [2] https://www.kernel.org/minor-changes-to-tarball-release-format.html [3] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/ [4] https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/stable/linux.git -- Regards, Andrey
