Converting from .a to .so

[Michael Schwendt]

On Sun, 24 Dec 2006 14:52:29 -0900, Jeff Spaleta wrote:

> On 12/24/06, Paul wrote:
> > Okay, for future reference, is there a way to do what I need to do
> > (convert from .a to .so)?
> 
> Don't you just need to pass -shared to the compiler?

The original question is wrong to begin with. Without a sane versioning
scheme that is supported by the upstream developers, creating any shared
library at the RPM package level adds no value. Quite the opposite even,
when upstream prefers changing the library API often. Packagers make up a
SONAME that works for a single release, but which breaks the ABI as often
as upstream changes the library in a way that would require an updated
library version plus a rebuild of dependencies. Alternatively, over time
they end up with a series of SONAMEs which conflicts with the official
library versioning scheme when upstream makes the step towards publishing
shared libs.

> Hmm... it looks like the current netcdf packages do NOT created shared
> libs. Hmmm... this maybe a problem that needs to be resolved.

Hence the answer to the original post is: Talk to upstream!