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

[Alexei Starovoitov]

On Wed, Dec 04, 2019 at 01:54:05PM -0800, Jakub Kicinski wrote:
> 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.

Distros should be packaging libbpf and bpftool from single repo on github.
Kernel tree is for packaging kernel.