Re: [RFC] Go (golang) packaging

[Shawn <shawnlandden@gmail.com>]

On Tue, Jan 1, 2013 at 6:54 PM, Paul Wise <pabs@debian.org> wrote:

On Wed, Jan 2, 2013 at 12:14 AM, Michael Stapelberg wrote:

> Only when not using the “official” compiler (gc), e.g. gccgo has support
> for dynamic linking.

Then we should use gccgo until the official compiler supports this.

go also doesn't support building as a shared library, because

#1 the go scheduler would have to have differn't bootstrapping code hooked up (for gccgo it would be in libgo) and

#2  go uses split stacks[1].

But when it doesn't support building as a shared library, it will probably be done with gccgo first.

> AFAIK not, but I will add this to the list of questions I want to ask on
> the Go mailing lists.

Ok, please let us know about the results.

Henceforth when a go program depends on a go library, those go libraries are ALWAYS compiled in statically. Static linking causes many problems for distributions like Debian, and therefore this presents a significant hurdle to quality packaging of go in Debian. Source-only distribution is perhaps possible, but then AFAIK go library writers are not necessarily as careful as C library writers to maintain source compatibility. 

[1] http://gcc.gnu.org/wiki/SplitStacks

-Shawn Landden