Re: [PATCH 0/4] Fix build issues with CONFIG_RTE_BUILD_COMBINE_LIBS=y

[Neil Horman <nhorman-2XuSBdqkA4R54TAoqtyWWQ@public.gmane.org>]

On Fri, Oct 03, 2014 at 04:52:40PM -0700, Stephen Hemminger wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Oct 2014 07:28:33 -0400
> Neil Horman <nhorman-2XuSBdqkA4R54TAoqtyWWQ@public.gmane.org> wrote:
> 
> >  I.e. you can ship your pmd's
> > pacakged separately from your core
> 
> I was hoping only the application API would be "stable"
> As we know from Linux kernel, internal API's will never remain stable.
> 

None of the API's are stable.  My only hope with the ABI series I've posted is
to keep the interfaces stable for a release beyond the next time they change, so
that application developers aren't consistently caught off guard if they don't
synchronize with the DPDK release schedule.

I know the kernel API's are constantly changing, but this isn't the kernel,
its a user space library.  Theres nothing that prevents a third party from
writing a pmd to interface to the ethdev library, which is no different from any
other user space library.  If the DPDK wants to get packaged like other
libraries in distributions, it needs to provide stability assurances like other
libraries.

Neil