Comment 3 for bug 1870061

Hi paride,
things aren't as bad as you think :-)

ipxe-qemu-256k-compat-efi-roms is an intended old artifact only needed for compatibility for pre-bionic upgraders. We will have to carry it as-is for now (and quite a while).

But the actual source for the real (not the compat) thing is much much newer.
ipxe-qemu | 1.0.0+git-20190109.133f4c4-0ubuntu3
That is 4 years up from what you looked at :-)

The new ipxe code was still failing in January so for Focal we focussed on stability and only added selected changes for some new features (see changelog). I guess in 20.10 we will pick up the (now working) new version along a new qemu.

Any CVE will need the users to restart their guests to pickup the new ROMs anyway.
While at that they can bump the machine-type and get the new roms.
This is generally recommended but not enforced.
=> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QemuKVMMigration#Upgrade_machine_type
Due to this somewhat special case the FTBFS in this is of a very low prio, and not needed for Focal IMHO (there is enough going on right now).

I'm ok to sponsor it into early 20.10 and if anyone (unlikely) ever wants/needs it in Focal he can use the change in this bug along the upload he had in mind.