docs: add news item about GNULIB removal

[libvirt PATCH] docs: add news item about GNULIB removal

Posted by Daniel P. Berrangé 4 years, 2 months ago

While we have CI testing coverage for many platforms, we don't test any
non-GLibC based Linux and there are other non-Linux platforms we don't
officially target, both of which might hit regressions.

Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
---
 docs/news.xml | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+)

diff --git a/docs/news.xml b/docs/news.xml
index f567a1182e..54ccc31abe 100644
--- a/docs/news.xml
+++ b/docs/news.xml
@@ -84,6 +84,25 @@
       </change>
     </section>
     <section title="Improvements">
+      <change>
+        <summary>
+          use of GNULIB has been completely eliminated
+        </summary>
+        <description>
+          Historically libvirt has embedded GNULIB to provide fixes for
+          various platform portability problems. This usage has now been
+          eliminated and alternative approaches for platform portability
+          problems adopted where required. This has been validated on the
+          set of platforms covered by automated CI build testing: Fedora
+          30, 31 and rawhide; CentOS 7 and 8; Debian 9 and 10; Ubuntu 18.04;
+          FreeBSD 11 and 12; Mingw-w64; macOS 10.14 with XCode 10.3 and 11.3.
+          Other Linux distros of a similar vintage using GLibC are expected
+          to work. Linux distros using non-GLibC packages, and other
+          non-Linux platforms may encounter regressions when building this
+          release. Please report any build problems encountered back to the
+          project maintainers for resolution.
+        </description>
+      </change>
     </section>
     <section title="Bug fixes">
     </section>
-- 
2.24.1

Re: [libvirt PATCH] docs: add news item about GNULIB removal

Posted by Andrea Bolognani 4 years, 2 months ago

On Fri, 2020-02-07 at 16:21 +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> While we have CI testing coverage for many platforms, we don't test any
> non-GLibC based Linux and there are other non-Linux platforms we don't

It's "glibc", not "GLibC".

> officially target, both of which might hit regressions.
> 
> Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
> ---
>  docs/news.xml | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
>  1 file changed, 19 insertions(+)
> 
> diff --git a/docs/news.xml b/docs/news.xml
> index f567a1182e..54ccc31abe 100644
> --- a/docs/news.xml
> +++ b/docs/news.xml
> @@ -84,6 +84,25 @@
>        </change>
>      </section>
>      <section title="Improvements">

This belongs quite squarely in the "Packaging changes" section IMHO.

> +      <change>
> +        <summary>
> +          use of GNULIB has been completely eliminated

Looking at the website and the git repository, it's either "gnulib"
or "Gnulib", never "GNULIB".

> +        </summary>
> +        <description>
> +          Historically libvirt has embedded GNULIB to provide fixes for
> +          various platform portability problems. This usage has now been
> +          eliminated and alternative approaches for platform portability
> +          problems adopted where required. This has been validated on the
> +          set of platforms covered by automated CI build testing: Fedora
> +          30, 31 and rawhide; CentOS 7 and 8; Debian 9 and 10; Ubuntu 18.04;
> +          FreeBSD 11 and 12; Mingw-w64; macOS 10.14 with XCode 10.3 and 11.3.

I think listing all targets is a bit excessive. Also note that we
don't actually have CentOS 8 CI coverage yet.

> +          Other Linux distros of a similar vintage using GLibC are expected
> +          to work. Linux distros using non-GLibC packages, and other
> +          non-Linux platforms may encounter regressions when building this
> +          release. Please report any build problems encountered back to the
> +          project maintainers for resolution.

Should we include the caveat that we're still following our platform
compatibility guidelines?

-- 
Andrea Bolognani / Red Hat / Virtualization

Re: [libvirt PATCH] docs: add news item about GNULIB removal

Posted by Daniel P. Berrangé 4 years, 2 months ago

On Fri, Feb 07, 2020 at 06:18:59PM +0100, Andrea Bolognani wrote:
> On Fri, 2020-02-07 at 16:21 +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > While we have CI testing coverage for many platforms, we don't test any
> > non-GLibC based Linux and there are other non-Linux platforms we don't
> 
> It's "glibc", not "GLibC".
> 
> > officially target, both of which might hit regressions.
> > 
> > Signed-off-by: Daniel P. Berrangé <berrange@redhat.com>
> > ---
> >  docs/news.xml | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
> >  1 file changed, 19 insertions(+)
> > 
> > diff --git a/docs/news.xml b/docs/news.xml
> > index f567a1182e..54ccc31abe 100644
> > --- a/docs/news.xml
> > +++ b/docs/news.xml
> > @@ -84,6 +84,25 @@
> >        </change>
> >      </section>
> >      <section title="Improvements">
> 
> This belongs quite squarely in the "Packaging changes" section IMHO.
> 
> > +      <change>
> > +        <summary>
> > +          use of GNULIB has been completely eliminated
> 
> Looking at the website and the git repository, it's either "gnulib"
> or "Gnulib", never "GNULIB".
> 
> > +        </summary>
> > +        <description>
> > +          Historically libvirt has embedded GNULIB to provide fixes for
> > +          various platform portability problems. This usage has now been
> > +          eliminated and alternative approaches for platform portability
> > +          problems adopted where required. This has been validated on the
> > +          set of platforms covered by automated CI build testing: Fedora
> > +          30, 31 and rawhide; CentOS 7 and 8; Debian 9 and 10; Ubuntu 18.04;
> > +          FreeBSD 11 and 12; Mingw-w64; macOS 10.14 with XCode 10.3 and 11.3.
> 
> I think listing all targets is a bit excessive. Also note that we
> don't actually have CentOS 8 CI coverage yet.
> 
> > +          Other Linux distros of a similar vintage using GLibC are expected
> > +          to work. Linux distros using non-GLibC packages, and other
> > +          non-Linux platforms may encounter regressions when building this
> > +          release. Please report any build problems encountered back to the
> > +          project maintainers for resolution.
> 
> Should we include the caveat that we're still following our platform
> compatibility guidelines?

I don't want to discourage people from reporting issues. If someone
reports an issue with a platform that's unsupported, we can consider
on a case by case basis whether to accept the fix and/or add to the
supported platforms.

Regards,
Daniel
-- 
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Re: [libvirt PATCH] docs: add news item about GNULIB removal

Posted by Andrea Bolognani 4 years, 2 months ago

On Fri, 2020-02-14 at 16:37 +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 07, 2020 at 06:18:59PM +0100, Andrea Bolognani wrote:
> > On Fri, 2020-02-07 at 16:21 +0000, Daniel P. Berrangé wrote:
> > > +          Other Linux distros of a similar vintage using GLibC are expected
> > > +          to work. Linux distros using non-GLibC packages, and other
> > > +          non-Linux platforms may encounter regressions when building this
> > > +          release. Please report any build problems encountered back to the
> > > +          project maintainers for resolution.
> > 
> > Should we include the caveat that we're still following our platform
> > compatibility guidelines?
> 
> I don't want to discourage people from reporting issues. If someone
> reports an issue with a platform that's unsupported, we can consider
> on a case by case basis whether to accept the fix and/or add to the
> supported platforms.

Fair enough.

-- 
Andrea Bolognani / Red Hat / Virtualization