tree 9e58dc4d140e519d2e7bcd635e40fda6b7bdf276
parent 61fce9693f0311949c59cc62a8fdee6e36243553
author Quentin Monnet <quentin@isovalent.com> 1644489757 +0000
committer Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org> 1644556187 -0800

bpftool: Update versioning scheme, align on libbpf's version number

Since the notion of versions was introduced for bpftool, it has been
following the version number of the kernel (using the version number
corresponding to the tree in which bpftool's sources are located). The
rationale was that bpftool's features are loosely tied to BPF features
in the kernel, and that we could defer versioning to the kernel
repository itself.

But this versioning scheme is confusing today, because a bpftool binary
should be able to work with both older and newer kernels, even if some
of its recent features won't be available on older systems. Furthermore,
if bpftool is ported to other systems in the future, keeping a
Linux-based version number is not a good option.

Looking at other options, we could either have a totally independent
scheme for bpftool, or we could align it on libbpf's version number
(with an offset on the major version number, to avoid going backwards).
The latter comes with a few drawbacks:

- We may want bpftool releases in-between two libbpf versions. We can
  always append pre-release numbers to distinguish versions, although
  those won't look as "official" as something with a proper release
  number. But at the same time, having bpftool with version numbers that
  look "official" hasn't really been an issue so far.

- If no new feature lands in bpftool for some time, we may move from
  e.g. 6.7.0 to 6.8.0 when libbpf levels up and have two different
  versions which are in fact the same.

- Following libbpf's versioning scheme sounds better than kernel's, but
  ultimately it doesn't make too much sense either, because even though
  bpftool uses the lib a lot, its behaviour is not that much conditioned
  by the internal evolution of the library (or by new APIs that it may
  not use).

Having an independent versioning scheme solves the above, but at the
cost of heavier maintenance. Developers will likely forget to increase
the numbers when adding features or bug fixes, and we would take the
risk of having to send occasional "catch-up" patches just to update the
version number.

Based on these considerations, this patch aligns bpftool's version
number on libbpf's. This is not a perfect solution, but 1) it's
certainly an improvement over the current scheme, 2) the issues raised
above are all minor at the moment, and 3) we can still move to an
independent scheme in the future if we realise we need it.

Given that libbpf is currently at version 0.7.0, and bpftool, before
this patch, was at 5.16, we use an offset of 6 for the major version,
bumping bpftool to 6.7.0. Libbpf does not export its patch number;
leave bpftool's patch number at 0 for now.

It remains possible to manually override the version number by setting
BPFTOOL_VERSION when calling make.

Signed-off-by: Quentin Monnet <quentin@isovalent.com>
Signed-off-by: Andrii Nakryiko <andrii@kernel.org>
Link: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/20220210104237.11649-3-quentin@isovalent.com