[ovs-dev] ABI versioning (was Re: [PATCH] rhel: Support...)

Ben Pfaff blp at ovn.org
Thu Jan 5 16:51:20 UTC 2017


On Thu, Jan 05, 2017 at 10:52:00AM -0500, Aaron Conole wrote:
> I'm uncomfortable with bumping this and just 'let the chips fall where
> they may,' since having a version that hasn't changed is the virtually
> the same as not having a version.  The instant we bump, we state that
> the version means something, so I'm not comfortable just shipping a
> patch that changes the version without some accompanying documentation
> explaining *what* that means.  It also means we need to be more diligent
> with reviews and watch for potential ABI breakages, with a compatibility
> strategy in place (when ABI/API changes can be made, how they are made,
> etc.).  I think it's got more implication than just a single line change
> to the configure.ac file.

My intent has been that each release branch is a separate major version,
so that we maintain ABI compatibility across all 2.5.x releases, all
2.6.x releases, and so on.  I don't know whether we've succeeded at
this, since it hasn't been a focus, but that was my original intent.


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