Reason for 10.2 -fPIC requirement

[Loïc Minier <lool+debian@via.ecp.fr>]

        Hi,

 Policy 10.2: "The shared version of a library must be compiled with
 -fPIC".

 This is a "must", but I couldn't find where the requirement comes from
 (I only checked the changelog).

 I'm currently trying to resolve Debian bug #268603 where mpeg2dec is
 built with -fPIC on i386 only.  As far as I understood it, -fPIC is a
 10% performance improvement on i386 only, and a much smaller
 improvement on most other arches because they usually have more
 registers.  I also have read that -fPIC is borken on some !i386 arches.

 Would someone please sched some light on the origins of this
 requirement?  If this requirement is only to save memory in most cases,
 would it be reasonable to permit building with -fPIC by changing this
 "must" in a "should"?

   Bye,

-- 
Loïc Minier <lool@dooz.org>