-----Original Message-----
From: Panu Matilainen [mailto:pmatilai@redhat.com]
Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2016 1:30 PM
To: Mcnamara, John <redacted>; dev@dpdk.org
Subject: Re: [dpdk-dev] DPDK Stable Releases and Long Term Support

...

quoted

ABI
---

The Stable Release should not be seen as a way of breaking or
circumventing the DPDK ABI policy.

I find this a strange thing to say about a stable/LTS release ABI. I had
read the originating thread before seeing this, but it still made me go
"Huh?" for several seconds. The problem perhaps being, the rest of the
document addresses stable/LTS releases, but this statement speaks about
normal development work going on elsewhere.

The earlier version had a mention about ABI/API breakage related to things
what not to backport but that's entirely gone here. Given how important
ABI + API stability is for stable/LTS releases, I think it deserves a
special mention here. Maybe something more to the tune of:

---
ABI or API breakages are not permitted in stable releases, special care
must be taken to when backporting.

The existence of stable release(s) does not lessen the need to comply to
DPDK ABI policy in development work.
---

That seems reasonable. If I do an update to the doc or add it to the guides I'll update it with this.

With the exception of the ABI/API thing, this looks like a fair starting
point to me. Time and experience will tell more.

I also think that we will have to see how it goes. What is important is that we end up with something that is useful to the community and consumers.

John.
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