Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH v3] mempool: reduce rte_mempool structure size

[Olivier MATZ <olivier.matz@6wind.com>]

Hi,

On 02/12/2016 04:38 PM, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> OK, I'm going to sum it up with new words and let the conclusion comes
> from Keith, Panu and Olivier.
> 
> We agreed to allow ABI breaking if a notification was done in the
> previous release.
> Keith has sent a notification for 16.04 so the "official" ABI will be
> changed in 16.07.
> It is also encouraged to show how the ABI will be broken when sending
> a notification. It allows to give an informed opinion before ack'ing.
> The code snippet will also be useful to app developpers when preparing
> a future upgrade.
> Keith has sent the whole code change.
> This code change may be submitted in the current release without waiting
> the deprecation time if gated in the NEXT_ABI ifdefs.
> It allows to provide the feature to app developpers who don't care about
> versioning. But the price is a more complicated code to read and manage.
> 
> To make it short, the rules to use NEXT_ABI are not strict and may change.
> So now you have to decide if this change can be integrated in 16.04
> as NEXT_ABI.

Thank you Thomas for this summary. Then my vote would be in favor of
only keep the deprecation notice for 16.04 and push the code without
the NEXT_ABI ifdefs for 16.07 because:

- although it's a valuable patch, there is no urgency in having if for
  the next release
- NEXT_ABI does make the code harder to read in this case, and I'm
  thinking about the patchset from David Hunt (external mempool handler)
  that will be in the same situation, and maybe also another patchset
  I'm working on.

Regards,
Olivier