Comment 23 for bug 1539775

Hi,
thanks for testing, sad that there could have been no HW test and also that it was only testpmd.
I think it is time to discuss what we do about your request to have it as "tech preview only".

To my knowledge there is no such thing as a tech preview per package (please correct me if I'm wrong). It either is of good quality and will go into the package and be supported for the full support period or it is not - in which case it should not go in.

I'd currently prefer to decline the inclusion for the following reasons:
- power8 dpdk upstream work is still on the old state of dpdk 2.2 (see the example with the broken default config)
- power still disables many devices since they are not tested properly
- the devices you requested yourself (mlx) are actually unusable in a Distribution environment
- there is not a lot of test exposure on power yet, nor upstream focus

If we would put it into 16.10 archive as is this would mean
Canonical will have to
- Add the delta to packaging
- add release notes entry about "tech preview" only status
- carry changes into deb_dpdk packaging
But if we do so, that implies several todos and especially serious commitment for IBM
- stabilize dpdk on power upstream
- take over responsibility the power related issues for the 16.10 support time

I'm afraid if we pick it up now it might end up carrying this as "preview" forever and it will become a maintenance burden.

As suggested before, given the current release deadlines and the current state as outline I'd suggest we provide a ppa which provides dpdk as in Ubuntu 16.10 plus the ppc enablement I created.
- This much more matches what a "tech preview" is and despite not in the main archive still gives everyone an established way to consume it.
- On that you can work, experiment and test
- Avoids throwing things out later which is a much higher impact task
- Once stability and confidence is reached we can enable it in the main archive in e.g. 17.04

Looking forward for your opinion on "providing it as a ppa for 16.10".
If it is unacceptable I can provide the packaging bits as they are done, but you will have to convince the release team in the discussion for the feature freeze exception which surely will hit this topic.

If you are good with a ppa let me know and I'll do all that is needed including bringing the packaging to deb_dpdk as well.
But if you are really hard bound on going into 16.10 I'd ask you to add the content for the FFE process right away so we don't loose time -> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/FreezeExceptionProcess.