Back in March were a set of patches to the Linux kernel's XZ embedded compression implementation with the project having switched from public domain to the BSD Zero Clause License along with other changes to update that in-tree code. Since then [1]the notorious XZ backdoor situation was discovered in the upstream XZ project. With those major issues behind, Lasse Collin today sent out an updated set of patches for updating the in-tree XZ code for the Linux kernel.

These XZ patches are to update against the newer XZ Embedded code that also moves from public domain to the BSD Zero Clause License. Plus there's updated documentation, new ARM64 and RISC-V filters, and other updates.

Over the patches sent out on the Linux kernel mailing list back in March by Lasse Collin, the v2 changes include now removing Jia Tan from the XZ maintainers for the kernel: "Jia Tan" being the one that baked the backdoor into the upstream XZ codebase and carrying out the nefarious behavior. The new patches also have some mother minor changes:

v2:

- Omit Jia Tan from MAINTAINERS and commit messages.

- Don't change home page URLs as the home pages were moved back to their old locations.

- Add xz_dec ( ) kernel-doc fixes and improvements.

- arm64: Add the make target Image.xz for CONFIG_EFI_ZBOOT=n.

- riscv: Add the make target Image.xz and set HAVE_KERNEL_XZ in Kconfig like it is done with other compressors for CONFIG_EFI_ZBOOT=n.

The updated XZ patches for the Linux kernel can be found via [2]this kernel mailing list thread .



[1] https://www.phoronix.com/news/XZ-CVE-2024-3094

[2] https://lore.kernel.org/lkml/20240721133633.47721-1-lasse.collin@tukaani.org/