If I understand the discussion in issue 17822 and here, we're looking at the following questions (feel free to correct me where needed):
Q: Should we commit to a stable ABI between minor releases? I think everyone agrees that we should, or at least that it's a worthwhile goal. Q: Should *wsutil* be part of that stable ABI? Debian, Ubuntu and (according to rpmfind.net) OpenSuSE and Mageia treat it as such. It would be helpful to know what non-Wireshark packages depend on wsutil in those distributions and elsewhere. Q: What's the best way to ensure stability? That's a tricky one. We did so in the past using abi-compliance-checker, but that was removed in 6e5ba74b. I think it would be worthwhile to try adding it back in a more simplified form for release branches, but I'm not sure when I would have time to work on that. On 1/20/22 7:29 AM, Roland Knall wrote:
For clarification: " but the change should most certainly happen with a version beyond 3.6" means, that the break should be reverted for 3.6.x, but it should be put in place for -dev to be in the next major release cheers Am Do., 20. Jan. 2022 um 16:28 Uhr schrieb Roland Knall <rkn...@gmail.com <mailto:rkn...@gmail.com>>: I think it is reasonable to assume that libraries provided with the project are being used by external programs. I know one utility which is being used in a rather closed-off community (but nonetheless widely adopted by around 200-300 people), which got broken by this. Their solution is to stay on 3.4 until either 3.6 is fixed or the utility (which probably will be done in this case). I also think it is the right thinking to allow libraries and more specifically ABI breaks between releases. But those should never occur in a maintenance release, which is what happened here if I got the gist of it. If the break would be between 3.4.x and 3.6.0 it would be fine by me. But breaking between 3.6.0 and 3.6.1 should not happen. I consider this an issue that must be fixed - but the change should most certainly happen with a version beyond 3.6. And just additionally my 2 cents. Please always consider that although the download rates of Wireshark are mind-blowing and wonderful, the adoption within companies might be even greater with special build versions. There exists many reasons for those versions, be it not enough resources available to bring changes to mainline or having code and adaptations which are for whatever (legal mostly) reasons not able to be publicly available. Changes like these i would see as a risk to those practices, and one of the reasons Wireshark has such a good standing within the community are our policies for long-time stability and maintainability. Just my own thoughts on this. cheers Roland Am Do., 20. Jan. 2022 um 13:42 Uhr schrieb Bálint Réczey <bal...@balintreczey.hu <mailto:bal...@balintreczey.hu>>: Hi All, João shared his opinion about the project's commitment to maintain stable shared library ABI within stable branches: https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues/17822 <https://gitlab.com/wireshark/wireshark/-/issues/17822> I believe the current practice is reasonable and beneficial enough for many parties to warrant the work, but I could be wrong. Comments are welcome. Cheers, Balint ___________________________________________________________________________ Sent via: Wireshark-dev mailing list <wireshark-dev@wireshark.org <mailto:wireshark-dev@wireshark.org>> Archives: https://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-dev <https://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-dev> Unsubscribe: https://www.wireshark.org/mailman/options/wireshark-dev <https://www.wireshark.org/mailman/options/wireshark-dev> mailto:wireshark-dev-requ...@wireshark.org <mailto:wireshark-dev-requ...@wireshark.org>?subject=unsubscribe ___________________________________________________________________________ Sent via: Wireshark-dev mailing list <wireshark-dev@wireshark.org> Archives: https://www.wireshark.org/lists/wireshark-dev Unsubscribe: https://www.wireshark.org/mailman/options/wireshark-dev mailto:wireshark-dev-requ...@wireshark.org?subject=unsubscribe
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