Re: [dpdk-dev] [RFC v2] meter: fix ABI break due to experimental tag removal

[Thomas Monjalon <thomas@monjalon.net>]

30/01/2020 15:21, Luca Boccassi:
> On Thu, 2020-01-30 at 15:17 +0100, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > 30/01/2020 13:57, Luca Boccassi:
> > > On Thu, 2020-01-30 at 13:33 +0100, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> > > > Hi,
> > > > 
> > > > I disagree with the need of this patch.
> > > > The symbol was experimental, meaning we can change it.
> > > > Removing experimental tag is not an ABI break.
> > > 
> > > Hi,
> > > 
> > > This symbol change was requested for backport in 19.11.x, and
> > > experimental or not I'm not too keen on backward incompatible
> > > changes
> > > to the public interface in an _LTS point release_. The compromise
> > > was
> > > to see if we could support both symbols version, which makes the
> > > change
> > > backward compatible.
> > > 
> > > If you prefer not to have this patch in mainline I'm also fine in
> > > taking it just for the LTS. I agree with you that it is not
> > > required
> > > for mainline releases (although nicer for me if it's a backport
> > > rather
> > > than a new change).
> > 
> > I would like to avoid opening the door for maintaining the
> > experimental ABI
> > in the mainline. Please take it directly in the LTS.
> > 
> > The next question is to know whether we really want to have such
> > patch in LTS.
> > Anyway, 19.11.0 has this symbol as experimental.
> > How adding a non-experimental version of the function in 19.11.1 will
> > change
> > the ABI status of the whole 19.11 branch?
> 
> The problem is not adding the new symbol, but removing the experimental
> one. Changing the version of the symbol was requested by OVS for
> inclusion in 19.11.

Yes, sorry, this is what I meant.
Given 19.11.0 already has the symbol as experimental,
and that applications like OVS had to accept it as experimental,
why removing experimental tag in 19.11.1?