Wanted to do this for a long time to collect important knowledge and make it easier to pass maintainership. Only time will tell if this'll be useful or become outdated instead.
···1+# Maintainers
2+3+- TODO: We need more maintainers:
4+ - https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues/78450
5+ - If you just want to help out without becoming a maintainer:
6+ - Look for open Nixpkgs issues or PRs related to Chromium
7+ - Make your own PRs (but please try to make reviews as easy as possible)
8+- Primary maintainer (responsible for updating Chromium): @primeos
9+- Testers (test all stable channel updates)
10+ - `nixos-unstable`:
11+ - `x86_64`: @danielfullmer
12+ - `aarch64`: @thefloweringash
13+ - Stable channel:
14+ - `x86_64`: @Frostman
15+- Other relevant packages:
16+ - `chromiumBeta` and `chromiumDev`: For testing purposes (not build on Hydra)
17+ - `google-chrome`, `google-chrome-beta`, `google-chrome-dev`: Updated via
18+ Chromium's `upstream-info.json`
19+ - `ungoogled-chromium`: Based on `chromium` (the expressions are regularly
20+ copied over and patched accordingly)
21+22+# Updating Chromium
23+24+Simply run `./pkgs/applications/networking/browsers/chromium/update.py` to
25+update `upstream-info.json`. After updates it is important to test at least
26+`nixosTests.chromium` (or basic manual testing) and `google-chrome` (which
27+reuses `upstream-info.json`).
28+29+## Backports
30+31+All updates are considered security critical and should be ported to the stable
32+channel ASAP. When there is a new stable release the old one should receive
33+security updates for roughly one month. After that it is important to mark
34+Chromium as insecure (see 69e4ae56c4b for an example; it is important that the
35+tested job still succeeds and that all browsers that use `upstream-info.json`
36+are marked as insecure).
37+38+## Major version updates
39+40+Unfortunately, Chromium regularly breaks on major updates and might need
41+various patches. Either due to issues with the Nix build sandbox (e.g. we cannot
42+fetch dependencies via the network and do not use standard FHS paths) or due to
43+missing upstream fixes that need to be backported.
44+45+Good sources for such patches and other hints:
46+- https://github.com/archlinux/svntogit-packages/tree/packages/chromium/trunk
47+- https://gitweb.gentoo.org/repo/gentoo.git/tree/www-client/chromium
48+- https://src.fedoraproject.org/rpms/chromium/tree/master
49+50+If the build fails immediately due to unknown compiler flags this usually means
51+that a new major release of LLVM is required.
52+53+## Beta and Dev channels
54+55+Those channels are only used to test and fix builds in advance. They may be
56+broken at times and must not delay stable channel updates.