On Tue, 07 Nov 2017 01:34:02 +0100, Takashi Sakamoto wrote:
This commit deprecates some APIs related to the dimension information. They are planned to be removed in a development period for Linux kernel v4.21.
IMO, the version to deprecate the feature may depend on LTS kernel version. 4.21 looks OK, but we may shift it.
I still get no merit of your suggestion. Do you mean that the removal of ABI should be done in several releases before target LTS will be actually released, to produce stable ABI? If so, we need to estimate the timing of next LTS. However, it's hard because for recent LTS we got no official announcement from stable maintainers till LTS version of Linux kernel is actually released. At least, I won't work with such uncertain estimations.
The feature removal isn't what we can guarantee at a certain kernel version. As long as we have a real (not theoretical) user, it shouldn't be dropped. It's still unwritten "no regression" rule.
That said, we may announce and prepare / plan the deprecation, but we can't define the exact kernel version in general. And considering LTS release is one of the decision factors.
Takashi