Hi,
the main reason is that we need a new maintainer, and no one has yet stepped up. Also, the source distribution from microchip that we were using is no longer available, so we need to choose one of the alternatives. You'll find details in the discussion of:
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugrepo ... bug=932989
avr-gcc versions compared: 4.9.2, 4.8.1, 4.7.2, 4.6.2, 4.5.1
Re: avr-gcc versions compared: 4.9.2, 4.8.1, 4.7.2, 4.6.2, 4.5.1
The Debian AVR maintainer replied to my question "why is Debian using such an old gcc-avr":