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Re: Confused by .la file removal vs static linking support



I'm a little alarmed at the attitude that "no one cares about static
linking" so that it's okay to drop the .a files.  Likely relatively
few people care, but there are some that do.

One example is scientific users that need to ensure reproducibility of
computer experiments [1] over many years: one technique used is to
statically link the code and quarantine it so that it isn't disturbed
by system library upgrades.  It's not the only technique used, of
course, but "our priorities are our users" so let's think hard before
removing this option for them.

To the original poster's question, it seems to me that [2] is
reasonably clear that the request is to drop the .la file.  I wouldn't
necessarily downgrade the -dev package dependencies: often they are
there not only for the static lib, but also because your library's
includes will #include files from other libs it depends on, so all
users of your -dev package may need the depended-upon -devs.  So it
will depend on the situation at hand.

-Steve

[1] http://lists.debian.org/debian-science/2010/04/msg00037.html
[2] http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2009/08/msg00808.html

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