static libraries' policy: possible solution

[Dmitry Butskoy]

Bill Nottingham wrote:

>Tom 'spot' Callaway (tcallawa at redhat.com) said: 
>  
>
>>Perhaps, but:
>>
>>1. There is tangible benefit to this, it will shrink the size of Core.
>>2. This method can be easily short-circuited for those apps which need
>>it.
>>3. Most other RPM based distros have already done this (or something
>>similar).
>>    
>>
>
>1. and 2. can simply be solved by removing the static libs, though.
>
>  
>
The problem is that many people believe that static libraries are 
necessary. This circumstance is proved by the present discussions, and 
also by precedents in other distros.

IMO, Fedora is not an ordinary distro. Because of its history (RedHat 
Linux etc.) it is one of leaders, and even the first in a number of 
leaders. Therefore sharp changes (even correct) and full ignoring of 
minority's opinion should be avoided. Such things are allowable for some 
new, "revolutionary", marginal distros, not for wide-spread enough.

There is a sign of infinity in the new Fedora's logo. The neglecting of 
opinion and needs of an appreciable part of users is not an infinity :(


I believe that suggested solution (in the part of changes in the spec 
files) can be useful for any static lib policy. If sometime in the 
future the decision to change policy will be accepted, it will lead just 
to change of the appropriate system macros, without any interventions 
into packages themselves. (I.e., define %find_static "rm -f *.a"-like, 
and include "--disable-static" into default %configure ).
Additionally, spec-files properly edited by this way, can help people 
who will want to create some additional repository with static libraries 
(Livna-like), because creating of such a repository can be automated.


Dmitry Butskoy

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