Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel

From	Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk>
Newsgroups	linux.debian.bugs.dist, linux.debian.kernel
Subject	Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel
Date	2020-01-31 17:20 +0100
Message-ID	<zuHbs-2FO-11@gated-at.bofh.it> (permalink)
References	(9 earlier) <zoKc2-7vg-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zkyM9-AC-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zoQr7-2zK-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zkyM9-AC-3@gated-at.bofh.it> <zoQr7-2zK-3@gated-at.bofh.it>
Organization	linux.* mail to news gateway

Cross-posted to 2 groups.

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On Wed, 2020-01-15 at 12:50 +0000, Sudip Mukherjee wrote:
> Hi Jonathan,
> 
> On Wed, Jan 15, 2020 at 06:12:05AM +0000, Jonathan Nieder wrote:
> > retitle 948041 libbpf-dev: please build from https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf
> > reassign 948041 libbpf-dev
> > merge 942903 948041
> > quit
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > Julia Kartseva wrote:
> > > On Sun, 12 Jan 2020 09:51:55 +0100 Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> wrote:
> > > > Why should we?  If the upstream developers decide to maintain it
> > > > independently, aka don't use the kernel repo as true source, or better,
> > > > remove the source from it, then we have something to do.
> > 
> > I agree --- if upstream development were happening in
> > https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf then this would be a no-brainer.  It
> > appears to instead be a mirror of the source that's in the kernel
> > repo, though.
> 
> That will be difficult as all of them are dependent on the ftrace hooks
> that are in the kernel.
> 
> > > Why should we switch from kernel sources to GH is a frequently asked
> > > question so the reason was explained in libbpf README [1].
> > 
> > If I'm reading that correctly, the intent appears to be that it would
> > allow faster libbpf upgrades.
> 
> Yes, one of my intent. Faster and independent.

This is a potential benefit, but probably only in the run-up to a
release when we might fix the kernel version early.

[...]
> > Is there some underlying need that we could address more directly?
> > I think I'm missing some piece of the motivation here.
> 
> Going back to the history of why I started this bug report. I was added
> in a discussion about libtraceevent and Steven (upstream developer of
> libtraceevent) was asking how can he make changes to the library without
> releasing a new version and that the distros should not pick up as that
> will still be premature and not tested enough.
[...]

However, this ability to release libbpf *less* often also seems
important, and I think this point has been missed.

I have some concern about whether this might prevent us building
bpftool in future (if it depends on recent changes in libbpf) but
that's hypothetical at this point.

So on balance I support moving libbpf out to a separate source package.

Ben.

-- 
Ben Hutchings
73.46% of all statistics are made up.

Thread

Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-03 18:20 +0100
  Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Marco d'Itri <md@Linux.IT> - 2020-01-03 19:20 +0100
    Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-03 19:50 +0100
    Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Bastian Blank <bblank@thinkmo.de> - 2020-01-03 21:00 +0100
      Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-03 21:30 +0100
        Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-12 01:40 +0100
          Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Bastian Blank <waldi@debian.org> - 2020-01-12 10:10 +0100
  Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Jonathan Nieder <jrnieder@gmail.com> - 2020-01-15 07:20 +0100
    Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-15 14:00 +0100
      Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Bastian Blank <bblank@thinkmo.de> - 2020-01-18 16:50 +0100
        Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Andrii Nakryiko <andrii.nakryiko@gmail.com> - 2020-01-20 07:50 +0100
      Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Ben Hutchings <ben@decadent.org.uk> - 2020-01-31 17:20 +0100
        Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-01-31 17:40 +0100
          Bug#948041: impossible to update libbpf without updating the kernel Sudip Mukherjee <sudipm.mukherjee@gmail.com> - 2020-02-05 22:10 +0100
  Bug#948041: marked as done (libbpf-dev: please build from  https://github.com/libbpf/libbpf) "Debian Bug Tracking System" <owner@bugs.debian.org> - 2020-04-12 00:10 +0200

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