Re: RFC: SDL and X static extension libraries re-revisited

[Adrian Bunk <bunk@fs.tum.de>]

On Thu, 1 Nov 2001, Branden Robinson wrote:

> Hi folks,

Hi Branden,

>...
> 4) You can make the problem "go away" on Linux with gcc by supplying the
> "-fPIC" flag when compiling unshared (static) objects (a.k.a. ".a"
> files).  However, this is a violation of Debian Policy, and in the
> general case it's a total waste to do this because static objects don't
> need symbol relocation information because they'll never be relocated.
>...
> Comments?

Now that there are again problems with libraries that are only available
as static libraries I'd like to know your opinion on the following
suggestion:

Change policy so that static libraries that aren't available as shared
libraries must be compiled  with "-fPIC" (and other static libraries
still mustn't be compiled with "-fPIC").

I don't understand the technical details, but as far as I understand it
adding "-fPIC" when compiling these few static libraries might have some
bad effects on the space and/or the execution time of these libraries but
it saves many troubles like the ones we see now with the SDL libraries.

Is this a possible solution or did I miss something?


cu
Adrian

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