Re: Packaging bpftool and libbpf: GitHub or kernel?

[Shung-Hsi Yu <shung-hsi.yu@suse.com>]

On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 05:23:16PM +0800, Shung-Hsi Yu wrote:
> Hi, 
> 
> I'm considering switch to bpftool's mirror on GitHub for packaging (instead
> of using the source found in kernel), but realize that it should goes
> hand-in-hand with how libbpf is packaged, which eventually leads these
> questions:
> 
>   What is the suggested approach for packaging bpftool and libbpf?
>   Which source is preferred, GitHub or kernel?

An off-topic, yet somewhat related question that I also tried to figure out
is "why the GitHub mirror for libbpf and bpftool exist at the first place?".
It is a non-trivial amount of work for the maintainers after all.

For libbpf, the main uses case for GitHub seem to be for it to be used as
submodule for other projects (e.g. pahole[1]), and that alone seem to suffice.

For bpftool the reason seems to be less clear[2]. From what I can tell right
now its mainly use for CI (this applies to libbpf as well), which is
definitely useful.

But I wonder whether packaging one of the motives to create the mirrors
initially? Can't seem to find anything in this regard.


1: https://github.com/acmel/dwarves/tree/master/lib
2: https://lore.kernel.org/bpf/CAEf4BzZ+0XpH_zJ0P78vjzmFAH3kGZ21w3-LcSEG=B=+ZQWJ=w@mail.gmail.com/

> [snip]