Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH 0/2] dpdk: Allow for dynamic enablement of some isolated features

[Neil Horman <nhorman@tuxdriver.com>]

On Fri, Aug 01, 2014 at 10:46:33AM +0200, Vincent JARDIN wrote:
> On 31/07/2014 22:32, John W. Linville wrote:
> >>BTW: what is FESCO?
> >Fedora Engineering Steering Committee
> >
> >Neil and I have already felt the hot breath of FESCO on our necks
> >regarding the Fedora DPDK package...
> >
> 
> I do confirm and feel that we should go step by step.
> 
> Having multiple library as Bruce suggest could be an option, I like this
> idea.
> 
Its not an option (reasons described further down in the thread).

> Another one could be to get a new ELF format (like executables on Mac or
> Windows) that allows to support multiple binaries optimized for each CPUs. I
> am not aware of such options with Linux loader. But here, as a DPDK
> community, we cannot push it. Any one at Fedora?
> 
This is definately not an option, at least not without significant justification
or need.  What you're asking for here is the development of an entirely new
binary file format, the kernel and glibc support to interpret and execute it,
and the compiler tooling to emit code in that format.  Thats a huge undertaking,
its not going to be done just because a single library would like to ship
multiple binaries to be optimized for different cpu variants within the same
family.  Thats a multi year effort, and not something I'm prepared to even
consider undertaking.

Neil