static libraries' policy

[Paul Howarth]

Dmitry Butskoy wrote:
> During the review processes I've noticed that reviewers very differently 
> concern to presence of the static libraries in the devel packages. Some 
> of them force me to get rid of it, but some say nothing about it at all.
> 
> 
> I've looked in the CVS code for some statistics:
> 
> Extras:  there are 235 packages which have "*-devel", 149 have static 
> libs, 86 not have.
> Core: there are 364 "devel" packages, 211 with static libs, 153 without.
> 
> Extras: 149/235 -- 63% have static libs
> Core: 211/364 -- 58% have static libs
> 
> 
> It seems that the recommendation to avoid the including of static 
> libraries into devel package does not work properly.
> 
> Is it some kind of liberalism or some kind of anarchy?...

http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/PackagingGuidelines

Exclusion of Static Libraries
-----------------------------

Packages including libraries should exclude static libs as far as 
possible (eg by configuring with --disable-static). Static libraries 
should only be included in exceptional circumstances. Also applications 
linking against libraries should as far as possible link against shared 
libraries not static versions.

Paul.