Re: [PATCH] Don't install .la files when --no-la-files is used

[Bob Friesenhahn]

On Sat, 8 Nov 2008, Russ Allbery wrote:
> pkg-config supports having separate dependency lists for static linking
> and shared linking, which seems to adequately address this problem (if
> that feature is actually used; the documentation last I looked was a bit
> lacking and a lot of pkg-config *.pc providers aren't aware of it).
> libtool could do something similar, but there would have to be some way to
> tell libtool which libraries are required for shared linking and which are
> required only for static linking.

Quite a lot can known from .la files but it is apparent that .la files 
are now spontaneously deleted.

It is really quite a burden on the developer to try to understand what 
is needed for static and shared linking.  Many Linux 
application/library authors are not even aware of all the libraries 
they are using and it might not be possible to fully know without 
using diagnostic tools, special environment variables like 
LD_BIND_NOW, or a particular execution mode of the software. 
Dependencies are not always obvious and is is possible for "pass 
through" dependencies to be introduced (stealthy hard dependencies) 
that the developer is not aware of.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
address@hidden, http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/