[OE-core] RFC: magic libtool .la removal

[Colin Walters]

On Tue, 2013-06-18 at 16:47 +0100, Richard Purdie wrote:

> The thing which really worries me about this is that we'll start to
> deviate quite massively with how upstream expect us to use autotools.

I just consider upstream wrong, and so do others:
http://wiki.debian.org/ReleaseGoals/LAFileRemoval
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines (search for .la)
http://blog.flameeyes.eu/2008/04/what-about-those-la-files (the one mostly sane Gentoo guy)

> As things stand, we have a number of sysroot fixes for the sysroot
> support in libtool which is basically broken out the box. I have tried
> discussing them with upstream and was ignored, mainly as we patch
> libtool and we're supposed to use it unpatched. 

Yeah, I dunno...maybe someone needs to fork libtool.

> I worry that if we go this route, the builds will stop working without
> the .la file removal and that we'll lose any chance of being able to
> resolve our patchset with libtool upstream. We might as well throw away
> libtool at that point

Or that...

>  and save the overhead. It also means we will have
> bigger problems working on something like darwin (which I've had work in
> the past).

I don't have any experience with Darwin myself.

> So I don't see the pressing need to set us off down a path on our own.
> Yes the .la files are annoying but they're not that much of a problem,
> are they?

Depends; I don't have a lot of first-hand experience with problems they
cause in the OE context.  But .la files completely break jhbuild.
Certainly, one could call jhbuild a hack, and it is.  But it's a tool
with absolutely essential properties for people contributing to GNOME.  

Basically jhbuild allows one to e.g.:
$ jhbuild buildone gtk+
$ jhbuild run gedit

Now you have your system version of /usr/bin/gedit linked against the
latest gtk+ from git in /opt/gnome/lib/libgtk.so.  This "two layer"
model is essential for allowing developers to test new code without
risking their /.

The root "feature" of .la files where it can say "if you link against
me, also link against these other libraries" that causes this is much
better implemented by pkg-config.