On Thu, Oct 12, 2006 at 05:01:03PM -0300, Alexandre Oliva wrote:
On Oct 12, 2006, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm(a)ATrpms.net> wrote:
> Seems to really depend on the software generating/using them. Or from
> a different viewpoint: if they really were not required (on Linux),
> then why are libtool authors installing them (on Linux)? We wouldn't
> be having this thread if the simple statement ".la files are not
> required" would indeed hold true.
They're part of the portable libtool library abstraction. Removing
them means you give up some of the portability.
Pretending not to have read the following restricting paragraph: If
*.la files were indeed unnecessary/redundant on a platform, let's call
it *-redhat-no-static-linux-gnu, then *.la file installation could be
skipped. But since we only think we live on such a platform this isn't
happening.
On GNU/Linux, with the further constraint of not using static
libraries, and only installing libraries in directories searched by
both ld and ld.so, you don't lose or miss anything.
So you would lose on /opt and if some lib needs static linking, and
this decision is non-local as you properly explained in some other
part of this thread. E.g. we would globally remove degrees of freedom
for little gain.
--
Axel.Thimm at
ATrpms.net