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[RFC] Removing .la files from x86
- From: Yaakov Selkowitz <yselkowitz at cygwin dot com>
- To: cygwin-apps at cygwin dot com
- Date: Tue, 2 Aug 2016 22:09:18 -0500
- Subject: [RFC] Removing .la files from x86
- Authentication-results: sourceware.org; auth=none
Libtool .la files are generally a waste of time and space. They slow
down linking of other libraries with libtool, and they cause otherwise
unnecessary private dependencies to be pulled in by -devel packages.
Therefore, the major distros generally remove them from their packages
unless they are really necessary.
When we first enabled Cygwin for x86_64, as we had no backwards
compatibility to worry about, I made removing all .la files the default.
AFAIK this has worked well, and any missing link libraries that the
presence thereof would have masked have already been fixed.
In order to do the same for x86 without breaking builds of other
packages, AFAICS we would need a perpetual postinstall script which will
continually remove them. The downside is that (unless the script is
made a *LOT* more complicated) a number of -devel packages will show up
as "Incomplete" until such time they are rebuilt with a new version of
cygport.
Any objections?
--
Yaakov