[Splashy-devel] Bug#410351: libsplashy0-dev: please provide .pc files and remove .la files

[Pat Suwalski]

Tim Dijkstra wrote:
>> This package is providing .la files, please remove those and provide a
>> .pc file which is better for representing internal and external
>> dependencies, for additional flags and for static linking.
> 
> Do you have some docs I can RTFM about this? libtool makes these .la files
> automatically, but no .pc I think. Also, I don't think we're the only one
> shipping these files, they have there use, why do you want the removed?

I don't have any fine manuals on the subject, but Debian is on a crusade 
to kill all .la files.

la files are considered suboptimal because they hardcode paths and 
other CFLAGS in them in non-portable ways. This became a huge problem 
when splitting up X, for example, because every single .la file had 
"/usr/X11R6/lib/libXrender.la" in it. When Xrender moved, *everything* 
broke.

They also really got in the way when you wanted to build something in a 
different prefix, like /opt, because things were hardcoded to /usr.

pkg-config is more flexible, lets you override paths and things, and 
actually reflects how libraries may have been built on your system as 
opposed to the libtool method.

If you look at X packages, there is not a single libtool archive there.

--Pat