Re: [dpdk-dev] [PATCH] cryptodev: version rte_cryptodev_info_get function

[Ray Kinsella <mdr@ashroe.eu>]

On 21/04/2020 10:36, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
> 21/04/2020 08:01, Ray Kinsella:
>>
>> On 20/04/2020 18:37, Thomas Monjalon wrote:
>>> 20/04/2020 19:31, Ray Kinsella:
>>>>
>>>> Our only commitment is to the stability of the v19.11/v20 ABI, until v21. 
>>>>
>>>> That said, once an ABI migrates from EXPERIMENTAL to v21, it _shouldn't_ be changing.
>>>> We don't have a strict commitment to the v21 ABI until v20.11.
>>>>
>>>> However if v21 is changing across quarterlies (outside of additions) ... something else is wrong.
>>>
>>> The only way to check a symbol is not changing in a quarterly release
>>> is to test it. That's what we wanted to enforce:
>>> compare 20.02 ABI in 20.05 release.
>>>
>>> What other process do you suggest?
>>>
>>
>> Well I guess it's understanding the reason why you are doing something.
>> I can see reasons for wanting to test against both v19.11 and v20.02.
>>
>> v19.11 because our strict commitment is to the v20 abi.
>> v20.02 to ensure that v21 symbols are not changing between quarterly releases.
>>
>> On v20, since you tested v20.02 against v19.11 during the v20.02 release cycle.
>> The v20 symbols should not have changed during the v20.02 release cycle. 
>>
>> I take your point, that then testing v20.05 against v20.02 would catch both v20 and v21 changes. 
> 
> OK, so we need a policy or process update to make this conclusion clear to everybody.
> 

yes, I replied to David Marchand on this separately. 

In the case the process is already in place ... Travis is routinely testing against v20.02.
If we wanted to make this abundantly clear we could add a note/section explaining the process to 
guides/contributing/abi_versioning.rst ?

So I think we need two other policy additions. 

1. Fiona is clear, that we need a note on the policy document to cover the version numbering error 
that was made in DPDK 19.11. Bruce's commit (f26c2b39b271cdcd857ba518c5e48c78cb1c30af) on the subject, 
explains it very well ... 

2. We also need to merge "doc: alias to experimental tag for stable apis"