From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:54448) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXlzu-0006W7-DQ for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 19 Jul 2017 06:14:27 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXlzq-0004NU-Bd for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 19 Jul 2017 06:14:26 -0400 Received: from mx1.redhat.com ([209.132.183.28]:35156) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1dXlzq-0004Js-2U for qemu-devel@nongnu.org; Wed, 19 Jul 2017 06:14:22 -0400 From: "Daniel P. Berrange" Date: Wed, 19 Jul 2017 11:08:00 +0100 Message-Id: <20170719100802.14094-1-berrange@redhat.com> Subject: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH v5 0/2 (for 2.10] Document deprecated features & support lifecycle List-Id: List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , To: qemu-devel@nongnu.org Cc: Peter Maydell , Stefan Hajnoczi , Markus Armbruster , Thomas Huth , Eduardo Habkost , Paolo Bonzini , "Daniel P. Berrange" This is a followup to v1: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-05/msg02390.html v2: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-06/msg01286.html v3: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-07/msg00651.html v4: https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/qemu-devel/2017-07/msg04239.html I would really strongly like to see this documented in time for the 2.10 release, so that we can start the clock ticking on our deprecation policy and thus actually delete some stuff in the not too distant future. The goal is to clarify to users & app developers what they can expect from QEMU in terms of feature lifecycle & any deprecation policy should it be neccessary to remove features. The list of features marked as deprecated was determined by looking at the QEMU source for the word "deprecated'. It was then compared with the doc Thomas put up at http://wiki.qemu.org/Features/LegacyRemoval Key differences with the wiki page that Thomas wrote up vs patch 2 in this series - Deprecated features are given a fixed lifespan of 2 releases, rather than listing deletion at a future "major" v3.0.0 release. This ensures that applications like libvirt have a predictable fixed amount of time to react to deprecations. - Only lists features which are currently officially deprecated, no list of possible future candidates. The wiki page is probably a good place to maintain a list of future possible deprecations. To turn them into actual deprecations, a patch to the QEMU doc can then be posted & reviewed in the normal manner. - Not listing the '-6' and '-e' args to qemu-img create. Those were never deprecations, because the functionality was immediately turned into a fatal error. Patches to delete these have been merged now Changed in v5: - Removed misleading reference to "major" release (Eduardo) Changed in v4: - Misc typos / wording clarification (Thomas) Changed in v3: - Rename appendix to "Deprecated features" (Markus) - List all currently deprecated features - Document that deprecated features will be removed after 2 releases of being deprecated - Clarify that clock for removing historically deprecated features starts with the forthcoming release. Changed in v2: - Split into 2 patches so we can consider each suggested addition independantly. Daniel P. Berrange (2): docs: document support lifetime for features docs: document deprecated features in appendix qemu-doc.texi | 205 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 205 insertions(+) -- 2.13.0