static libraries' policy

[Daniel Veillard]

On Sat, Nov 12, 2005 at 08:21:28AM -0800, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
> On Fri, 2005-11-11 at 18:36 +0100, Christian.Iseli at licr.org wrote:
> > buc at odusz.so-cdu.ru said:
> > > In  other words - what I should do  with static libraries today?
> > 
> > So far, I have seen pretty good arguments why static libraries should *not* be 
> > included by default:
> >  - they introduce security risks
> >  - they add bulk to devel packages
> >  - some features of modern OS/compiler combos only work with shared libs
> > 
> > I don't think I have seen a good argument why static libraries *should* be 
> > included *by default* (except maybe "convenience", but convenience to whom ?).
> > 
> Daniel Velliard's LSB argument was accepted by Jens as a reason to
> modify his original proposal.  I've never looked into the LSB until
> today so I'm not certain of the argument but this is what I've found:
> 
>   A strictly conforming application shall not require or use any
>   interface, facility, or implementation-defined extension that is not
>   defined in this document in order to be installed or to execute
>   successfully.[1]_
> 
> [1]_
> http://refspecs.freestandards.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/application.html
> 
> If this isn't the relevant section, Daniel or jens will have to speak
> up :-)

  yes that was my point basically.

> > So, my answer to your question: unless you really think static libs are a must 
> > for your package, don't package them.
> 
> If Daniel's got a valid argument then static libraries have to be
> packaged by default.

  At least for the libraries
    1/ that we expect ISV to use
    2/ that are not part of the LSB set
 this affects me directly (libxml2) and potentially all desktop libs

> They don't need to be installed but they have to
> be available.  Does moving libraries into -static for FE work?  Or are
> we going to run into the same comps maintenence issues that Jeremy
> mentions in relation to FC?

  A no-nonsense rule is the best, we don't want to add hundreds of -static
packages, a maintainer may have a good reason to ship static libs, LSB being
one of them, apparently Chris Aillon gave another example where it's required
for Mozilla. No static should be a general trend, and for a number of libraries
it makes sense, but this should not be imposed as an absolute hard rule.

Daniel

-- 
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