[Fedora-packaging] Re: LibtoolArchives, v0.3

Enrico Scholz enrico.scholz at informatik.tu-chemnitz.de
Wed Jan 17 15:58:55 UTC 2007


rdieter at math.unl.edu (Rex Dieter) writes:

>>> Huh?  .la libtool archives in LD_LIBRARY_PATH are those used for *linking*,
>>> so why not -devel?
>> E.g. /usr/lib/kde3/kded_kdeprintd.la contains
>> | dependency_libs=' ... /usr/lib/libkio.la ... '
>> --> /usr/lib/libkio.la is needed at runtime and must be in a main
>> package.
>
> Not necessarily.  Just because something is listed as a
> dependency_lib, and it is missing, does not make loading it fail.
> (Try it, or trust me, *I* have, for kde bits anyway).

The decision whether loading fails or succeeds depends on the module,
not the library. Your .la packaging proposal applies to the library
("MUST be included in -devel ") and because the use-cases of libraries
can usually not be predicted you have to assume that loading will fail
when listed .la files are not available.


> Besides, did you miss my comment in the proposal that kde is fixable
> to not require .la files at runtime *at all*? (:

Current KDE is just a handy real-world example; I do not have time to
search for example where loading requires dependency_libs instead of
ELF's NEEDED entries.


>> Saying that packager has to decide on a case-by-case base does not help;
>
> It's better than the status-quo of saying .la files MUST (always) be
> omitted.

Your proposal is not better: it will make reviewers cry when .la files
are in main instead of -devel.

IMO, a rule like ".la files MUST be always omitted, unless the package
does not work else" is better than ".la files MUST be always in -devel".

First rule can be checked by the packager/reviewer at review-request
time. Latter rule might trigger problems years later with completely
independent packages.




Enrico




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