Subject: Re: [PATCH 0/3] perf/bpftool: Allow to link libbpf dynamically

From: Toke Høiland-Jørgensen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 02 Dec 2019 19:08:52 +0100

Andrii Nakryiko <[email-masked]> writes:

> On Wed, Nov 27, 2019 at 1:49 AM Jiri Olsa <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>> hi,
>> adding support to link bpftool with libbpf dynamically,
>> and config change for perf.
>>
>> It's now possible to use:
>>   $ make -C tools/bpf/bpftool/ LIBBPF_DYNAMIC=1
>
> I wonder what's the motivation behind these changes, though? Why is
> linking bpftool dynamically with libbpf is necessary and important?
> They are both developed tightly within kernel repo, so I fail to see
> what are the huge advantages one can get from linking them
> dynamically.

Well, all the regular reasons for using dynamic linking (memory usage,
binary size, etc). But in particular, the ability to update the libbpf
package if there's a serious bug, and have that be picked up by all
utilities making use of it. No reason why bpftool should be special in
that respect.

-Toke