Re: [gpsd-dev] Static linking in 3.15

[Eric S. Raymond]

Bernd Zeimetz <address@hidden>:
> 
> 
> On 06/05/2015 12:55 PM, Miroslav Lichvar wrote:
> > It seems in 3.15 the clients are now linked statically with libgps
> > (and libgpsd?). Is that intentional?
> > 
> > The Fedora gpsd-clients package used to be 200KB, now it is 1200KB.
> 
> I knew that the idea was bullshit, and now we have the result.

You are one of the main reasons I went to static linking.  I get fed
up with the endless, wearying arguments over the details of dynamic
linking, ld switches, and distro-specific library paths; they were
eating up over half of my maintainance time.  It's not 1990 any more;
1000KB of very cheap disk space is a small price to pay for shooting
all that fragility through the head.

You're probably going to bitch about scons now, but that's the wrong
target.  scons 2.3 has working versioned-library support; it didn't
help.  The actual problem is unrelated to the specific build system;
it comes from the requirement to simultaneously run the entire test
suite in the build and support installing to system space *without*
leaving a security hole.  You were the person who reported that
problem.

In retrospect, I was trying to be too clever when I plugged that hole.
The small space gain does not pay for the additional build complexity.
I should have gone to static linking right then and avoided all that crap.

If specific distros want to buy back the maintainance headache I made go
away, they can.  I think it's false economy.  
-- 
                <a href="http://www.catb.org/~esr/";>Eric S. Raymond</a>