Gentoo Schedules Chromium Package Removal for October 24 Unless a Volunteer Steps Forward, Citing Maintainer Burnout
Gentoo has masked its Chromium package and set removal for October 24 unless a volunteer takes over, as maintainers cite long builds, fast releases and a four-release lag.
Overview
Gentoo Linux is preparing to remove its source-built Chromium package. According to Linuxiac, the www-client/chromium package is scheduled for removal on October 24 unless a new volunteer steps forward to take over its maintenance, and the package has already been masked to warn users of the planned removal. The decision is a case study in how a volunteer-run distribution handles an upstream project that ships quickly and builds slowly.
What We Know
The timeline. LWN.net reports that Chromium package maintainer Sam James declared last rites for the package on September 24, after a lengthy conversation in a bug report filed by Roman Žilka. In Gentoo’s terminology, LWN explains, a maintainer announces last rites on the gentoo-dev-announce mailing list to notify the project that a package will be unmaintained and to give others a chance to claim it. Linuxiac cites an announcement on the Gentoo development mailing list.
The trigger. LWN says Žilka complained on September 9 that the latest stable ebuild was outdated, quoting his report that version 151.0.7922.169 contains “a catastrophic 602 known vulnerabilities of all severities.” James replied, per LWN, “Chromium is horrible to maintain as a source package. It is easily the package in Gentoo that burns through maintainers the most.” LWN adds that the maintainers have come close to giving Chromium last rites several times over the years.
The version gap. According to Linuxiac, Gentoo’s package page lists version 151.0.7922.169-r1 as the latest available, while upstream has reached version 155.0.8059.84, a gap of four major releases.
The workload. Linuxiac reports that compiling Chromium can take around six hours on a powerful desktop and 15-16 hours on a laptop, and that the current maintainer spends more than six hours of personal time each week on it. Linuxiac adds that Gentoo emphasizes letting users compile software with their preferred settings, including choosing system libraries over bundled dependencies, which makes maintaining Chromium more difficult. LWN.net reports that Matt Jolly said maintaining Chromium can take more than six hours each week counting only compilation time on a fast PC, and that it is “a commitment to volunteer at least a business day’s worth of your free time each week.”
The upstream pace. LWN notes that there is a new major branch of the browser roughly every two weeks via the stable channel, and a new version is shipped every week. In his comments, as reported by LWN, Jolly said the release cycle had shortened twice since he started maintaining the package in 2023.
Build complexity. James told commenters, as reported by LWN, that part of the recent complexity was the addition of Rust and Go dependencies, and that upstream’s CI for producing release tarballs “isn’t reliable.”
Why a Stopgap Was Rejected
LWN reports that Maciej S. Szmigiero asked whether the package could stay in the repository at “best effort” level; James said he did not think that was possible. Several users also offered ebuilds from third-party overlays. James answered that “Copying ebuilds works fine until it doesn’t,” and that an ebuild working for one user does not mean all USE flags work, according to LWN.
Using Google’s own toolchain would be simpler, LWN reports Jolly as saying, but it would restrict the ebuild to x86-64: “We’d lose arm64, ppc64, and the RISC-V overlay.” LWN reports that Jolly felt at least three people would be needed to maintain the source ebuild, quoting him: “History has shown that one maintainer isn’t working.” LWN says he would be willing to review commits and offer advice to anyone who took it on, and that the skills needed include familiarity with C, C++, Go, JavaScript and Rust.
What Users Can Do
Linuxiac says Google Chrome will remain available in Gentoo as a precompiled binary package, with Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi and Opera among other supported options, alongside Firefox and several other browsers. Users who specifically want Chromium can use the community-maintained version on Flathub. LWN cautions that this Flatpak is an unverified package built by a third party, not by the Chromium upstream project, and that Chromium is currently not available as a binary package from Gentoo.
LWN also checked other distributions: Fedora’s package was at version 154.0.8037.92, one version behind the upstream 154.0.8037.97 release published on October 1.
What We Don’t Know
- Whether a volunteer or team will take over the package before the October 24 deadline. LWN reports that the package could still be picked up before the end of the last-rites period or restored later, but that James did not want to see a restoration without a plan for sustainable maintenance.
Analysis
The episode illustrates a recurring tension in volunteer-run open source packaging: a security-critical application with a fast upstream cadence needs staffing that a small unpaid team cannot always provide. Gentoo is not abandoning Chromium-based browsers; it is declining to promise source-built Chromium on terms its volunteers say they cannot sustain, while leaving the door open to a larger maintenance team.