Re: [PATCHv4 0/6] perf/bpftool: Allow to link libbpf dynamically

[Jakub Kicinski]

On Wed, 4 Dec 2019 13:16:13 -0800, Andrii Nakryiko wrote:
> I wonder what big advantage having bpftool in libbpf's Github repo
> brings, actually? The reason we need libbpf on github is to allow
> other projects like pahole to be able to use libbpf from submodule.
> There is no such need for bpftool.
> 
> I agree about preference to release them in sync, but that could be
> easily done by releasing based on corresponding commits in github's
> libbpf repo and kernel repo. bpftool doesn't have to physically live
> next to libbpf on Github, does it?

+1

> Calling github repo a "mirror" is incorrect. It's not a 1:1 copy of
> files. We have a completely separate Makefile for libbpf, and we have
> a bunch of stuff we had to re-implement to detach libbpf code from
> kernel's non-UAPI headers. Doing this for bpftool as well seems like
> just more maintenance. Keeping github's Makefile in sync with kernel's
> Makefile (for libbpf) is PITA, I'd rather avoid similar pains for
> bpftool without a really good reason.

Agreed. Having libbpf on GH is definitely useful today, but one can hope
a day will come when distroes will get up to speed on packaging libbpf,
and perhaps we can retire it? Maybe 2, 3 years from now? Putting
bpftool in the same boat is just more baggage.