On Wed, Oct 26, 2016 at 08:57:52PM +0200, Andreas Cadhalpun wrote: > Hi, > > On 26.10.2016 05:26, Guillem Jover wrote: > > On Wed, 2016-10-26 at 00:37:18 +0200, Andreas Cadhalpun wrote: > >> On 25.10.2016 13:55, Guillem Jover wrote: > >>> For many static libraries, > >>> making them embeddable into other shared libraries is really not > >>> desirable. And those should be using the shared libraries instead. > >> > >> If that's the reason why it shouldn't be done, policy should mention it. > >> The current policy does not list this as reason not to use -fPIC, merely: > >> "since there is no benefit" > > > > I don't think it's "the reason", but personally I think it's one > > important reason. > > If there are more, they could be mentioned in policy, too. > > > Embedding static libraries into shared libraries can be very > > problematic if the shared libraries do not take precautions, such as > > explicit symbol visibility or symbol versioning, etc. Which most > > shared libraries do not do. And even then it's still prone to symbol > > conflicts, etc, even inside the shared library being linked itself in > > case of namespace issues, if the static library is sloppy. > > A (possibly shortened) version of this paragraph would be a good addition > to the policy. :) > > > So I think this should be in general discouraged. > > > >>> I still think the current policy is fine, and if someone wants to build > >>> a static library with PIC it should be brought up here. > >> > >> The current ffmpeg packages builds shared and static libraries, the > >> latter because they are used in the test suite. Both are built from > >> the same object files compiled with -fPIC. > >> Do you really think those static libraries should not be included > >> in the binary lib*-dev packages just because they are not incompatible > >> with including in other shared libraries? > > > > Well, I guess depends on how "clean" they are, what's the intended > > usage, etc. But given that in this case the usage is inside the same > > project, that seems pretty safe! > > There might be some confusion here. The ffmpeg package uses these > static libraries only for build-time testing, so doesn't need to > have them included in the binary packages. > I don't know if anyone is using these shipped static libraries. > > > I'd personally probably not ship them, > > and would instead provide non-PIC ones there. Or at most ship them in > > addition as _pic.a libraries, to require explicit invocation. > > I'd rather not built everything twice, so I think I'll just drop the > static libraries in the next upload and only worry about this again, > when/if someone files a bug about missing the static libraries.
It is customary to build everything twice, one with -fPIC, one without. Waiting for a bug report to do something is unfriendly to people using the stable release. Cheers, -- Bill. <ballo...@debian.org> Imagine a large red swirl here.
