static libraries' policy

[Michael A. Peters]

On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 18:36 +0100, Christian.Iseli at licr.org wrote:

> 
> So, my answer to your question: unless you really think static libs are a must 
> for your package, don't package them.

They are extremely useful when compiling a piece of software that you
intend to run on a different distribution.

If you want to separate them out into a -static package that requires
the -devel package, that's fine - but to just simply not include them
will result in some developers switching to a distribution that allows
THEM to decide whether or not to build software against a static library
or not rather than imposing on them how they are to compile software.

This could result commercial package foobar being available statically
for foobar but dynamically for the distribution they moved to.

I really think that static libraries should be packaged when available,
they are part of upstream package. Let the developer building software
decide whether or not they want to use it. Set a policy for extras that
says extras packages link against shared, that's fine - but don't impose
that upon developers - you choose for them, and some of them will move
to a less imposing distribution.