Paul Wise <p...@debian.org> writes: > I wasn't talking about link-order stuff but about dependency inflation; > binaries linking against libraries that aren't used by the binaries > linking against them. IIRC this is the purpose of --as-needed and what > it works around.
> To clarify further, I think --as-needed should be the default in GCC > upstream, not just in Ubuntu or elsewhere. Debian should not make it > the default before upstream do. Until it becomes the default in GCC > upstream, Debian should send patches to remove dependency inflation > from upstream build systems. Good luck with that. I haven't been able to get rid of some dependency inflation even in packages for which I'm upstream. In some cases (such as a shared library package that also contains binaries linked against that shared library but which don't need to be linked with the dependencies of the shared library), the only way to do so is to stop using Libtool completely, which I'm not willing to do. Even when it is possible, it often requires a complete rewrite of the upstream Autoconf machinery that makes it considerably more complex, and upstream is going to rightfully ask "why?". And I don't think we have a good answer. > If the linker generates errors then we will be forced to send patches > but if the linker just warns then we would have to rely on the buildd > log scanner reporting these issues to maintainers via the PTS. Hopefully > our upstreams will eventually start using the new GCC and begin fixing > these issues on their own. They will for link order, since that's important. They won't for dependency inflation, because it's a lot of work for no obvious gain, particularly when --as-needed exists. I used to feel the way that you did and tried to patch the software that I packaged, and finally realized I was just being masochistic. I switched over to --as-needed for packages like gnubg and the intense relief I felt was the wall that I stopped beating my head against. -- Russ Allbery (r...@debian.org) <http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/> -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-devel-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org Archive: http://lists.debian.org/87iowjwj85....@windlord.stanford.edu
