Re: Manual page and library file

[Gavin Smith]

On Fri, Jan 10, 2025 at 12:44:07AM +0100, Patrice Dumas wrote:
> > > > 2. In Debian we installed the .la files into /usr/lib/texinfo/ until 
> > > > version
> > > > 7.1.1 [3]. For the 7.2 packages [4] I skipped them: I could convert some
> > > > files using texi2any, so no drawbacks visible until now.
> > > > 
> > > > Are these files really needed?
> > > 
> > > I think not, on GNU/Linux and for installed libraries, the dynamic
> > > loading support and use of rpath should make sure that the libraries are
> > > correctly found and loaded even without .la, and in our code we do not
> > > error out if the .la is not found.  In-source and probably for other
> > > platforms the .la are needed.
> > > 
> > 
> > For now I install again some of the *.la files (*XS*.la, but not lib*.la).
> > As far as I understaood this is sufficient.
> 
> Indeed.  And for the next release you could remove all the .la files.

What was the reason for removing the .la files in the first place?  Why
would you expect that you could remove files that a package installs with
nothing going wrong?  Is it usual to remove .la files in other contexts?