On 28.01.2016 16:06, Bas Wijnen wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 01:38:11PM +0000, Ian Jackson wrote:
>> Overall I do think the costs of providing the static libraries, even
>> where a shared library is also provided, are justifiable.
>
> Agreed. We obviously shouldn't drop shared libraries; static libraries are
> extra, not a replacement. The only reason I can see not to ship a static
> library would be if for some reason it is hard to generate it. It would still
> be nice, but it may not be worth the effort. This is very unusual, however;
> AFAIK they are always built easily and just have to be installed into the
> package.
>
> The argument I see here ("people shouldn't use static libraries") is not
> correct in all situation, and I don't think Debian should make it hard for
> people who want to use them. It shouldn't be the default (and it isn't), but
> it should be easy.
I agree. One should differentiate between Debian packaging and what
users of Debian might want to do. For the former there are very good
arguments against linking against static libraries, but those arguments
don't hold true for the latter - and from a user perspective I have many
times been grateful that Debian does ship static versions of most
libraries for convenience.
So unless there is an _undue_ maintenance burden for building a static
version of a given library, I think -dev packages should include them.
Regards,
Christian
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