linking of indirect dependencies (dependency_libs) on Linux

[Steve Langasek]

Hi folks,

Last March, Scott James Remnant put together a patch which fixed libtool to
not gratuitously add indirect library dependencies to the linker line when
doing shared linking on Linux.  I was distraught to learn from him just
yesterday that this patch was never actually accepted upstream.  We've been
using it to good effect for the past year in Debian, and I was fully under
the impression that I could look forward to this change streamlining our
Debian development processes as more and more software began to use it
upstream, reducing the need to recompile software linked to libraries it
shouldn't have been linked to.  Evidently, this is not the case.

I can find only one very short thread
<http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/libtool-patches/2004-03/msg00111.html>
about this patch in the libtool-patches archive, which doesn't appear to
include much discussion.  Can someone explain to me what the rationale was
for rejecting this patch, so that I can address those reasons?

-- 
Steve Langasek
postmodern programmer

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