post-jessie: header only C++ library package (static?)

[Osamu Aoki <osamu@debian.org>]

Hi,

This is about packaging around a header only C++ library package.

As I understand, Debian does not usually ship static libraries based on
policy "8.3 Static libraries".  At the same time, Debian does not impose
any systematic way to let us trace upload of the static library and
alike.
  https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-sharedlibs.html#s-sharedlibs-static

I happen to read Fedora Packaging guideline on this topic and found out
that they enforce to package static libraries in a separate *-static
package.  So whenever a *-static is updated, they can trace and rebuild
packages build-depending on such a *-static package.
  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Packaging_Static_Libraries

Since we expect practically all programs should not link to the static
library, I thought that the Debian situation is not too bad.  I thought
that we should be able to manage situation with rare cases of bin-NMUs
for some special packages.

Then I saw "Packaging Header Only Libraries" for C++.
  http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Packaging_Header_Only_Libraries
|  Certain libraries, especially some C++ template libraries, are header
|  only libraries. Since the code is generated during compile time, they
|  act just like static libraries and need to be treated as such.

Fedora forces such library to use package name *-static to let all
packages depending on it be traced (and rebuild as needed).  It also
requires such seemingly arch=all (in the Debian term) packages to be
marked arch=any (in the Debian term).

"header only C++ library package" seems to be more common.

Do we have some mechanism to track such situation?

If we don't, maybe we should have similar rules.

Regards,

Osamu

PS:  This is something to consider for post-Jessie.  Some of my packages
     are linked to a such C++ header only library (marisa).