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Re: shared vs. statis libs



>>>>> On Tue, 6 Mar 2001 11:40:02 -0500, Aubin Paul <aubin@punknews.org> said:

 Aubin> Hello, One of my packages (scite) ships with a static library
 Aubin> called 'scintilla', which, in theory could be used as a shared
 Aubin> library, if I made the appropriate code and makefile changes.

 Aubin> I'm curious as to whether this is a Good Idea(tm) or if I
 Aubin> should just leave it.

 Aubin> Generally, I've considered making a scintilla-dev package, but
 Aubin> since the two parts are always distributed together, and I
 Aubin> can't find anything linked to it..

 Aubin> Anyway, here are my options, and I'd love to hear any
 Aubin> comments:

 Aubin> 1) Leave it as is.
 Aubin> 2) Build a scintilla-dev package with the headers, and the .a
 Aubin>    lib.
 Aubin> 3) Convert the library to a .so, submit it upstream, and hope
 Aubin>    they use
 Aubin> it.

 Aubin> I'm relatively new, and while I've fixed some upstream bugs,
 Aubin> and 64-bit stuff, I'm not sure how much behavioural changes
 Aubin> Debian maintainers should exert on something like this.

The important question is "Will it improve anything to produce a
shared lib?"  So if nothing links to it improvement won't come from
that direction.  If it's a small lib it'll likely not help.  If it's
larger than small and more than one binary in the package links to the
lib then it might be an improvement in space.

So will it help anything to make a shared lib from it?

Whatever the case you shouldn't convert it to a .so.  You should
produce both.

Jim

-- 
@James LewisMoss <dres@debian.org>      |  Blessed Be!
@    http://jimdres.home.mindspring.com |  Linux is kewl!
@"Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours." Bach



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