On 04/04/2019 21:13, Kevin Traynor wrote:
> On 04/04/2019 20:08, Wiles, Keith wrote:
>>
>>
>>> On Apr 4, 2019, at 11:56 AM, Kevin Traynor <ktray...@redhat.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> On 04/04/2019 11:54, Bruce Richardson wrote:
>>> <snip>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> My thoughts on the matter are:
>>>> 1. I think we really need to do work to start hiding more of our data
>>>> structures - like what Stephen's latest RFC does. This hiding should reduce
>>>> the scope for ABI breaks.
>>>> 2. Once done, I think we should commit to having an ABI break only in the
>>>> rarest of circumstances, and only with very large justification. I want us
>>>> to get to the point where DPDK releases can immediately be picked up by all
>>>> linux distros and rolled out because they are ABI compatible.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Maybe techboard should explicitly approve ABI breaks and new APIs (or
>>> APIs at transition from experimental to core). Just as a way to get more
>>> eyeballs and scrutiny on them.
>>
>> 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.
>>>
>
> We'll only find out if they are bad when they need ABI breaks later :-)
>
> My point is a good way to avoid future ABI breaks is to have more
> reviews on the APIs in the first place. Techboard approval might be one
> way, or 3 acks or something else.
+1 on this ... an API break should invite a higher level of scrutiny.
>
>>>> 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
>>
>
