* Steve Langasek (vorlon@debian.org) wrote: > On Wed, Jul 27, 2005 at 07:20:44PM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote: > > libtool is broken in this regard and needs to be fixed to survive > > missing files. > > Then fix it instead of giving people bad advice. Do you actually have anything beyond "libtool breaks otherwise, so it *must* be good!"? Here's some advice: rm *.la. Yay, fixes the problem *and* doesn't require everyone to add in dependencies that end up pulling in hundreds of unneeded packages when trying to build something. Yes, let's fix libtool. No, I don't think we should screw over anyone trying to do development because it's broken. > > libtool's brokenness just isn't a good enough reason to introduce all > > these -dev -> -dev dependencies. > > The fuck it isn't. I'm not going to sit back while you run around crippling > our ability to rebuild the archive just because you have an aesthetic > objection to libtool. *The only alternative to having -dev packages for > libtool-using libraries depend on the -dev packages of other libtool-using > libraries that they need is to have all libtool-using packages build-depend > directly on all of those indirect dependencies*. Until you present us with > a libtool that includes a fix for this misfeature, and convince maintainers > to *use* it in their packages, these are the only two options that give you > buildable packages -- and having packages build-depend on all the indirect > dependencies has a *much* higher crap factor. Last time I checked Debian was about technical excellence. It's sad to see people fighting against that. I thought it was about choice too but apparently that's not it either. Remove the .la files, or put them into the library packages themselves instead of in the -dev packages, or fix libtool. Certainly there are better ways to deal with this problem than adding in lots of dependencies for -dev packages. Packages need to be changed one way or another, let's make the changes that make sense instead of letting a single (admittedly broken) application dictate poor policy. Stephen
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