Andreas K. Huettel posted on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:50:04 +0200 as excerpted: > I'd like to get my standards up to speed, so may I respectfully ask- > what is, > apart from link time, the Gentoo-user-visible difference between * > removing the .a files in the ebuild * and not building them in the first > place?
If it was only link-time, that might be a point for simply removing them after link. But if static libs are built at all, on amd64, it's not simply the link- time at issue, but forces an actual double-build at least for the libs, once with -fPIC for dynamic linking, once without, for the static libs, (and executables if any). Ask the mysql guys about the trouble they had with mysql-embedded on amd64, and the kde guys about the trouble with amarok for kde4 on amd64, as a result. Interestingly enough, unless I've misunderstood, this issue would be affected by the recent security-based -fPIC/-fPIE on amd64 by default discussion as well, since if everything (including static libs) were built with at least -fPIC as required for dynamic linking, then a single build, linked once each for static and dynamic, as common on x86 (32-bit) would be at least arguably acceptable. (IOW, my point here isn't to argue whether that'd be acceptable or not, but rather, that the forced double-build factor on amd64 is much more an issue than simple double- linking would be.) -- Duncan - List replies preferred. No HTML msgs. "Every nonfree program has a lord, a master -- and if you use the program, he is your master." Richard Stallman
