Bug#555982: debian-policy: RPATH in binaries and shared libraries

[Matt Taggart <taggart@debian.org>]

Hi debian-policy,

This request concerns a particular problem, but I think maybe the answers 
might be generic and help with policy.

I maintain a package that runs afoul of the

  'binary-or-shlib-defines-rpath'

lintian check, which is currently being discussed in #555982 for addition 
to policy.

My package, fossology, uses plugin libraries provided by libextractor in 
/usr/lib/libextractor. Currently I have a bug regarding the loading of 
those libraries

  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=531864

A proposed fix is to use rpath so fossology can find the plugins. But if I 
do that, then I get the lintian error.

Assuming the libextractor authors wanted those plugins to be public, how 
are package maintainers supposed to solve this? Keeping the 112 
libextractor libraries in their own subdir seems like a good idea.
Maybe libextractor could drop a path in /etc/ld.so.conf.d/?
Is there some way to solve this so that applications using 
/usr/lib/libextractor.so can automatically find the stuff they need in 
/usr/lib/libextractor/?

Hopefully answers to these questions can solve the fossology problem _and_ 
be used to improve the proposed policy text.

Thanks,

-- 
Matt Taggart
taggart@debian.org