At 12:26 -0500 1999-12-19, Raul Miller wrote: >A better question is: what's a library?
libtool's documentation describes libraries as "programs with multiple entry points, and more formally defined interfaces." >The simplest constraint on policy would be to label the shared library >stuff as applicable to "traditional C programs" and leave it up to the >maintainer and bug report filers whether the program has been classified >properly. > >However, with some time and thought it might be possible to abstract >out some underlying concepts which are more generally applicable. For policy purposes a shared library should be defined as "A dynamic shared object with a soname, residing in a public library directory." "public library directory" should be defined as "A directory that appears in /etc/ld.so.conf or is otherwise always in the dynamic linker's search path." Shared objects that do not meet the above requirements should not be required to have a soname, do not need to appear in a shlibs file, and should be allowed to define an rpath of at least $ORIGIN ($ORIGIN is a glibc 2.1 magic rpath value that causes ld.so to add the directory containing the program defining $ORIGIN to the search path). -- Joel Klecker (aka Espy) Debian GNU/Linux Developer <URL:mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <URL:mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> <URL:http://web.espy.org/> <URL:http://www.debian.org/>
