static libraries' policy

[Dmitry Butskoy]

Linus Walleij wrote:

>> It seems that the recommendation to avoid the including of static 
>> libraries into devel package does not work properly.
>
>
> It does. Very many if not all of the packages including static libs 
> were probably made before the rule was in place.

Unfortunately it is not so. I know some packages with static libraries, 
which have been added recently.

IMHO, "the rule was in place" 26.07.2005 (according to 
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingGuidelines?action=info, change 
#31). There are 72 packages in the Extras which have been modified since 
then, and still have static libs. BTW, also 109 such packages are in the 
Core.

Certainly not all these packages have been added recently -- maintainers 
of some of them just could not notice the change of the policy. But 
upcoming time of FC5test1 release should force them to change for new 
policy.


Total:

Extras:
   devel: 235
   with-static: 149 (63%), since policy change: 72 (31%)
Core:
   devel: 364
   with-static: 211 (58%), since policy change: 109 (30%)


>
> The case for no static libs is very profound, for example a security 
> error in a static library can not be fixed unless all packages 
> building against it are rebuilt too.
>
> So static libs make the distribution less modular. Get rid of them.

My post is not about use/don't use static libs, I agree that it is 
better to get rid of them.

The problem is a lot of people do not follow the new static libraries' 
policy, ahd it leads to some kind of mess.

BTW, only two weeks remained up to the date of FC5test1 ...


Dmitry Butskoy