On Wed, Nov 28, 2012 at 09:09:58AM +0000, Simon Marlow wrote:
On 27/11/12 23:28, Joachim Breitner wrote:
Hence, Debian will continue to provide its libraries built the static way.
So let me try to articulate the options, because I think there are some dependencies that aren't obvious here. It's not a straightforward choice between -dynamic/-static being the default, because of the GHCi interaction.
Here are the 3 options:
(1) (the current situation) GHCi is statically linked, and -static is the default. Uses the RTS linker.
(2) (the proposal, at least for some platforms) GHCi is dynamically linked, and -dynamic is the default. Does not use the RTS linker.
(3) GHCi is dynamically linked, but -static is the default. Does not use the RTS linker. Packages must be installed with -dynamic, otherwise they cannot be loaded into GHCi, and only objects compiled with -dynamic can be loaded into GHCi.
You seem to be saying that Debian would do (3), but we hadn't considered that as a viable option because of the extra hoops that GHCi users would have to jump through. We consider it a prerequisite that GHCi continues to work without requiring any extra flags.
I think what Joachim means is that the binaries /in Debian packages/ will be explicitly linked with -static, but the open question below is about whether to make -static or -dynamic the default for GHC.
Open question: What should GHC on Debian do when building binaries, given that all libraries are likely available in both ways – shared or static. Shared means that all locally built binaries (e.g. xmonad!) will suddenly break when the user upgrades its Haskell packages, as the package management is ignorant of unpackaged, locally built programs. I’d feel more comfortable if that could not happen.
Thanks Ian