[dpdk-dev] ABI/API stability in DPDK

[dpdk-dev] ABI/API stability in DPDK

[Mcnamara, John]

Hi,

At the recent DPDK 2017 Userspace in Dublin we had a discussion about API/ABI stability with representation from Intel, OVS-DPDK, Debian, Red Hat and plenty of input from the floor.


The main consensus after looking at different proposals was to maintain the current process (http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.html) but to try enforce it more rigidly.





The main points to come out of this discussion were:



1. That 3 Acks are still needed for deprecation and they should come from different companies.



2. ABI checks to be run as part of the CI/testing so that patches that break ABI are flagged early. Note, ABI checks can be run manually as follows: http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.html#running-the-abi-validator



3. New API's will be marked as experimental by default for 1 release minimum. This is to address the most common case for breakage which is in new APIs.


If I missed, or misrepresented, anything please update in a reply.

John

Re: [dpdk-dev] ABI/API stability in DPDK

[Ferruh Yigit]

On 10/6/2017 5:21 PM, Mcnamara, John wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> At the recent DPDK 2017 Userspace in Dublin we had a discussion about API/ABI stability with representation from Intel, OVS-DPDK, Debian, Red Hat and plenty of input from the floor.
> 
> 
> The main consensus after looking at different proposals was to maintain the current process (http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.html) but to try enforce it more rigidly.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The main points to come out of this discussion were:
> 
> 
> 
> 1. That 3 Acks are still needed for deprecation and they should come from different companies.
> 
> 
> 
> 2. ABI checks to be run as part of the CI/testing so that patches that break ABI are flagged early. Note, ABI checks can be run manually as follows: http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.html#running-the-abi-validator
> 
> 
> 
> 3. New API's will be marked as experimental by default for 1 release minimum. This is to address the most common case for breakage which is in new APIs.

Do we have data for this? Is it really new APIs get broken?

> 
> 
> If I missed, or misrepresented, anything please update in a reply.
> 
> John
> 
> 

Re: [dpdk-dev] ABI/API stability in DPDK

[Thomas Monjalon]

06/10/2017 18:21, Mcnamara, John:
> Hi,
> 
> At the recent DPDK 2017 Userspace in Dublin we had a discussion about API/ABI stability with representation from Intel, OVS-DPDK, Debian, Red Hat and plenty of input from the floor.
> 
> The main consensus after looking at different proposals was to maintain the current process (http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.html) but to try enforce it more rigidly.
> 
> The main points to come out of this discussion were:
> 
> 1. That 3 Acks are still needed for deprecation and they should come from different companies.
> 
> 2. ABI checks to be run as part of the CI/testing so that patches that break ABI are flagged early. Note, ABI checks can be run manually as follows: http://dpdk.org/doc/guides/contributing/versioning.html#running-the-abi-validator
> 
> 3. New API's will be marked as experimental by default for 1 release minimum. This is to address the most common case for breakage which is in new APIs.

Thanks for the summary, John.

The points 1 and 3 must be approved by the technical board.