+APIs marked as ``experimental`` are not considered part of the ABI and may
+change without warning at any time. Since changes to APIs are most likely
+immediately after their introduction, as users begin to take advantage of
+those new APIs and start finding issues with them, new DPDK APIs will be
+automatically marked as ``experimental`` to allow for a period of stabilization
+before they become part of a tracked ABI.
+
+Note that marking an API as experimental is a multi step process.
+To mark an API as experimental, the symbols which are desired to be exported
+must be placed in an EXPERIMENTAL version block in the corresponding libraries'
+version map script.
+Secondly, the corresponding prototypes of those exported functions (in the
+development header files), must be marked with the ``__rte_experimental`` tag
+(see ``rte_compat.h``).
+The DPDK build makefiles perform a check to ensure that the map file and the
+C code reflect the same list of symbols.
+This check can be circumvented by defining ``ALLOW_EXPERIMENTAL_API``
+during compilation in the corresponding library Makefile.
+
+In addition to tagging the code with ``__rte_experimental``,
+the doxygen markup must also contain the EXPERIMENTAL string,
+and the MAINTAINERS file should note the EXPERIMENTAL libraries.
+
+For removing the experimental tag associated with an API, deprecation notice
+is not required. Though, an API should remain in experimental state for at least
+one release. Thereafter, normal process of posting patch for review to mailing
+list can be followed.
+
+
+Library versioning
+------------------