On Fri, Jul 29, 2005 at 07:06:34AM +0900, Junichi Uekawa wrote: > > > - Don't ship .la files in the -dev package; don't depend on any other -dev > > > packages except those whose headers you need. This gives optimal results > > > for shared linking by pruning all unnecessary build-dependencies and > > > dependencies; but it also screws over anyone trying to do static linking, > > > who now has to go *recursively* hunt down the package name for each of the > > > library dependencies, based only on the names of the symbols exported. > > > (So why would anyone ship the static libs at this point...?) > > If we want to support static linking then let's break it off into it's > > own '-static' package with appropriate dependencies. Personally I don't > > think it's really worth it and we should just go ahead and drop the > > static libraries too. It'd certainly make the -dev packages alot > > smaller. Maybe then we could just put -dbg stuff in the -dev packages. > > :) > That's the portion which was missing in your argument, > resulting in your failure to convey information. > You need to state 'drop static lib linking support from -dev package' > rather than 'libtool is broken'. > libtool isn't really broken; it's just that static libs and shared libs > behave differently. No, libtool is moderately broken, as Stephen has pointed out -- it insists on having dependent .la files present on the system when doing dynamic linking, even though they shouldn't be needed. > > > - Kill the .la files and .a files. Drop support for static linking. Not > > > something that should be done lightly and without prior project-wide > > > discussion. > > We've had that discussion before. Last I recall there wasn't really a > > huge fight to keep them. > Current situation is that we have removed the mandate from > policy to require static libs, since some libs really don't work > with static linking. > However, it is still in policy 8.3. that if it exists, it will be > in -dev package. > Having an extra -static package is rather drastic change, > and I personally still do like the ability of being able to > do static linking. I think static libs have outlived their usefulness in Debian for the most part; but using this to justify creating whole *new* packages for static linking would just be insane. The dependencies of -dev packages are just not that big a deal to warrant having to manage all of these new binary packages. -- Steve Langasek postmodern programmer
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