[OE-core] [RFC PATCH] autotools: Don't install .la files if the distro doesn't want them

[Phil Blundell]

On Wed, 2012-11-28 at 15:09 +0000, Burton, Ross wrote:
> On 17 October 2012 14:42, Phil Blundell <philb at gnu.org> wrote:
> > It's not obvious that libtool's .la files serve any very useful purpose
> > on a modern system and they can be positively vexatious under some
> > circumstances.  Make installation of this stuff conditional on the new
> > "libtool-garbage" flag in DISTRO_FEATURES and backfill it for existing
> > distros.
> 
> I never saw a patch with a less inflammatory (albeit accurate) name.
> Libtool has been causing me pain again so I'd love to turn this on.
> Is this still good for merging with a different name (libtool-la?)

The only minor roadblock to this is that RP wasn't very keen on the
clean-on-reconfigure patch when I submitted that one independently, see:

http://lists.linuxtogo.org/pipermail/openembedded-core/2012-October/031449.html

Without some equivalent of that thing, turning off .la files in an
existing build tree will cause you to start getting failures.  I guess
we could just accept that as an occupational hazard, and say that people
who turn off libtool-la need to take care of the necessary cleaning for
themselves.

Other than that, yes, I would also like to see this patch get merged.

p.