[Bpf] [PATCH bpf-next] Introduce concept of conformance groups

[Dave Thaler <dthaler1968=40googlemail.com@dmarc.ietf.org>]

The discussion of what the actual conformance groups should be
is still in progress, so this is just part 1 which only uses
"legacy" for deprecated instructions and "basic" for everything
else.  Subsequent patches will add more groups as discussion
continues.

Signed-off-by: Dave Thaler <dthaler1968@gmail.com>
---
 .../bpf/standardization/instruction-set.rst   | 26 ++++++++++++++++++-
 1 file changed, 25 insertions(+), 1 deletion(-)

diff --git a/Documentation/bpf/standardization/instruction-set.rst b/Documentation/bpf/standardization/instruction-set.rst
index 245b6defc..eb0f234a8 100644
--- a/Documentation/bpf/standardization/instruction-set.rst
+++ b/Documentation/bpf/standardization/instruction-set.rst
@@ -97,6 +97,28 @@ Definitions
     A:          10000110
     B: 11111111 10000110
 
+Conformance groups
+------------------
+
+An implementation does not need to support all instructions specified in this
+document (e.g., deprecated instructions).  Instead, a number of conformance
+groups are specified.  An implementation must support the "basic" conformance
+group and may support additional conformance groups, where supporting a
+conformance group means it must support all instructions in that conformance
+group.
+
+The use of named conformance groups enables interoperability between a runtime
+that executes instructions, and tools as such compilers that generate
+instructions for the runtime.  Thus, capability discovery in terms of
+conformance groups might be done manually by users or automatically by tools.
+
+Each conformance group has a short ASCII label (e.g., "basic") that
+corresponds to a set of instructions that are mandatory.  That is, each
+instruction has one or more conformance groups of which it is a member.
+
+The "basic" conformance group includes all instructions defined in this
+specification unless otherwise noted.
+
 Instruction encoding
 ====================
 
@@ -610,4 +632,6 @@ Legacy BPF Packet access instructions
 
 BPF previously introduced special instructions for access to packet data that were
 carried over from classic BPF. However, these instructions are
-deprecated and should no longer be used.
+deprecated and should no longer be used.  All legacy packet access
+instructions belong to the "legacy" conformance group instead of the "basic"
+conformance group.
-- 
2.40.1

-- 
Bpf mailing list
Bpf@ietf.org
https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/bpf