[dpdk-dev] [dpdk-techboard] DPDK ABI/API Stability

[Ray Kinsella]

On 04/04/2019 20:08, Wiles, Keith wrote:
> 
> 
>> On Apr 4, 2019, at 11:56 AM, Kevin Traynor <ktraynor at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> On 04/04/2019 11:54, Bruce Richardson wrote:
>> <snip>
> ABI breaks should be handled by the board. As for new APIs they are not so bad and they do not need to be approved by the board just handled in the normal way. For API changes (I guess that is ABI) needs to be handled by the board unless we use the version control and maintain both APIs for a while.

New APIs will be experimental in any case, as you say they are less of
problem.

I agree, if we can make a change and preserve API compatibility with
versioning then everyone is happy.

Changes only need be referred to the higher power in case on absolutely
breakage - _but_ these need to become as rare as hens teeth.

>>
>>> I'm not sure I like the idea of planned ABI break releases - that strikes
>>> me as a plan where we end up with the same number of ABI breaks as before,
>>> just balled into one release.
>>>
>>> Question for Kevin, Luca and others who look at distro-packaging: is it the
>>> case that each distro will only ship one version of DPDK, or is it possible
>>> that if we have ABI breaks, a distro will provide two copies of DPDK
>>> simultaneously, e.g. a 19.11 ABI version and a 20.11 ABI version?
>>>
>>
>> It would probably double validation and maintenance, so it would require
>> a lot of extra effort.
>>
>>>
>>> So, in short, I'm generally in favour of a zero-tolerance approach for DPDK
>>> ABI breaks, and having ABI breaks as a major event reserved only for
>>> massive rework changes, such as major mbuf changes, or new memory layout or
>>> similar.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> /Bruce
>>>
>>
> 
> Regards,
> Keith
>