Re: Future of Wireshark's shared library ABI stability

[Gerald Combs <gerald () wireshark org>]

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 <rknall () gmail com <mailto:rknall () 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 <balint () balintreczey hu <mailto:balint () 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
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