On 2020-06-01 at 10:35, Paul Wise wrote: > On Mon, 2020-06-01 at 14:18 +0000, Vasyl Gello wrote: > >> So static libs present in packages like popt are remnants of the >> past and the general practice now is to discourage shipping all >> kinds of static libraries unless it is Go/OCaml… as mentioned in >> this wiki page? > > Right. That seems like a questionable decision. If I need to compile a program to run in an environment where I can't know what libraries / library versions are going to be available, or maybe even do know for a fact that certain ones will not be available, the obvious solution is to link it statically - but if Debian doesn't ship the static libraries, how exactly am I supposed to do that in Debian? Not linking programs statically by default is certainly a good idea, as is not shipping statically-linked programs in Debian packages without specific cause to do so (as cited on that Wiki page) - but not shipping static libraries just means that someone who *does* have a legitimate reason to use static linking in a particular case will have to compile the entire library stack necessary by hand, which seems like a suboptimal solution at best. Fortunately, there still seem to be thousands of packages which do ship static libraries, even excluding all packages whose names reference go or ocaml: $ apt-file -x search '\.a$' | cut -d ':' -f 1 | sort -u | grep -v '\bgo\b' | grep -v ocaml | wc -l 5524 If this "discourage shipping static libraries" policy is in fact in place, it seems to either be de-facto ignored in practice, or new enough that there are still lots of packages which haven't been affected. In fact, I don't see anything in that StaticLinking Wiki page which indicates that static libraries should not be shipped, and the relevant section of Debian Policy to which it links [1] states that "the static library is usually provided in addition to the shared library". Can you point me to a reference for the statement that it is now general practice to discourage shipping of static libraries (as distinct from statically-linked executables) in Debian packages? [1] https://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-sharedlibs.html#s-sharedlibs-static -- The Wanderer The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
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