Re: Kernel Application Binary Interface (kABI) support in FreeBSD

On 7/17/15 11:31 PM, Konstantin Belousov wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 11:05:59PM +0800, Julian Elischer wrote:
>> On 7/17/15 10:59 PM, Conrad Meyer wrote:
>>> On Fri, Jul 17, 2015 at 7:47 AM, Julian Elischer <julian_at_freebsd.org> wrote:
>>>> On 7/17/15 9:02 PM, Venkat Duvvuru wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Is there kABI (Kabi-whitelist) equivalent feature in FreeBSD?
>>>> well, yes and no.
>>> Julian,
>>>
>>> I believe Venkat is asking about a specific Linux package,
>>> kabi-whitelists. It contains a list of ABIs considered "stable" in a
>>> given RHEL release, and a checker that (?)validates programs to only
>>> contain "stable" calls (guessing a little bit, but it has some sort of
>>> checker anyway).
>> yes I know..  but that is needed because linux does NOT maintain kABI
>> compatibility.
>> We don't need it as much.
> Don't you see the self-contradiction in your statements ?
> Linux does maintain ABI stability, and the tool asked about, is the tool
> to ensure that the stability is provided.
no I don't see that
>
> We try to provide the stability, except when people ignore the issue, or
> make stupid decisions without concerning the future. And, althought we
> do have some very basic tools to check the changes in ABI of the given
> component, but we do not have any registry of the stable ABI and we do
> not detect the abrupt unintended ABI breakage in automated way.
yes people do break it but they are going against project policy when 
they do
and are often called out for it.
>
> Neither we have a tool to ensure that applications do not mis-use non-public
> interfaces or interfaces which are not stable.  This is a consequence of
> the missed registry.

>
> I noted the provoking haughtiness among many developers WRT ours/Linux
> ABI stability guarantees, while the real state is exactly opposed. The
> tirade is written to make more people aware of the thing and raising the
> desire to keep OS quality higher in this regard.
>
I don't think there is haughtiness.. I think we do a reasonable job in 
trying to
maintain kABI compatibility.
sometimes we mess up, it's true but overall it's been pretty amazing.

My main question to the OP is "what do you want to do?"