Re: Fwd: Bug#1032011: gettext: Private library should go to private subdir under lib

[Bruno Haible]

Santiago Vila wrote:
> -------- Mensaje reenviado --------
> Asunto: Bug#1032011: gettext: Private library should go to private subdir 
> under lib
> Fecha: Sun, 26 Feb 2023 14:57:45 +0000
> De: Bastien Roucariès <rouca@debian.org>
> Responder a: Bastien Roucariès <rouca@debian.org>, 1032011@bugs.debian.org
> Para: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>
> 
> Package: gettext
> Version: 0.21-11
> Severity: minor
> Tags: upstream
> 
> Dear Maintainer,
> 
> Private library /libgettextsrc-0.21.so and libgettextlib-0.21.so should go to
> private sudbir aka:
> usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gettext/libgettextsrc-0.21.so
> and
> usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gettext/libgettextlib-0.21.so
> 
> This is an upstream bug that should be reported

Summary:

- Doing so upstream would violate both the GNU Coding Standards and the
  File system Hierarchy Standard.

- You can do such things at the distro level, if you make sure that the
  dynamic linker will find the libraries there.

Details:

Upstream, I have to respect two standards:

  * The GNU Coding Standards [1] say that ${libdir) is "The directory for
    object files and libraries of object code." Very simple and unambiguous.

  * The File system Hierarchy Standard [2] gives me the choice between
    installing in /usr/lib or /usr/lib/gettext.
    But what you proposed is not /usr/lib/gettext, it is a subdirectory of
    /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu !

At the distro level, the distro decides where to put things. But if you
put shared libraries in /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/gettext/ you will
either have to make sure that this directory is known to ld.so (via
ld.so.conf, I guess), or use RPATH headers in the binaries (which many
distributions don't like to do).

Note that in future gettext versions, libgettextlib may be integrated
into libgettextsrc. So, we would be talking about a subdirectory for just
a single library.

Bruno

[1] https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Directory-Variables.html
[2] https://refspecs.linuxfoundation.org/FHS_3.0/fhs/ch04s06.html