[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Bruno Haible]

Follow-up Comment #6, sr#110674 (group libtool):

I have also verified, of course, that with the two patches the output of
'./configure --help' is as desired.


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[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Bruno Haible]

Follow-up Comment #5, sr#110674 (group libtool):

Find attached two patches that fix the problem. I have verified them by

* running libtool's "make check",

* applying them to GNU gettext and verifying that (on FreeBSD) the generated
libintl.a is compiled as PIC when --enable-pic or --with-pic is specified and
as non-PIC by default.

* applying them to GNU gettext and verifying that (on AIX 7.1, in 32-bit mode)
the options --enable-aix-soname=both and --with-aix-soname=both have the same
effect (of creating a file libintl.so.8 and a symlink libintl.so).


(file #55641, file #55642)

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Additional Item Attachment:

File name: 0001-Rename-option-with-pic-to-enable-pic.patch Size:9 KB
   


File name: 0002-Rename-option-with-aix-soname-to-enable-aix-soname.patch
Size:6 KB
   



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[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Bruno Haible]

Follow-up Comment #4, sr#110674 (group libtool):

Spreading confusion about what --enable-... and --with-... options mean is one
of the problems. Another one is that, in the './configure --help' output,
these options appear in the section "Optional Packages", whereas they belong
in the section "Optional Features".


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[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Ileana Dumitrescu]

Follow-up Comment #3, sr#110674 (group libtool):

Makes sense. We could change this after the next release. It does seem odd now
that I'm looking at it.


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[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Bruno Haible]

Follow-up Comment #2, sr#110674 (group libtool):


> old versions that have --with-pic & not --enable-pic will stick around
basically forever.

Yes, we can't make old versions disappear. E.g. a search on
codesearch.debian.net shows that 6% of all Debian sources still integration
with libtool version 1.x.

But that's not the point. The point of this bug report is that the
'./configure --help' output (and the libtool documentation) should not spread
confusion about what --enable-... and --with-... options mean.

The support for the old spelling does not need to be documented; it can be
supported silently.


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[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Mike Frysinger]

Follow-up Comment #1, sr#110674 (group libtool):

i don't know that we would ever really drop the option.  since libtool is
included in source distros, old versions that have --with-pic & not
--enable-pic will stick around basically forever.


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[sr #110674] Option --with-pic is a misnomer

[Bruno Haible]

URL:
  

 Summary: Option --with-pic is a misnomer
 Project: GNU Libtool
   Submitter: haible
   Submitted: Thu 23 Jun 2022 06:29:37 AM CEST
Category: None
Priority: 5 - Normal
Severity: 3 - Normal
  Status: None
 Privacy: Public
 Assigned to: None
Originator Email: 
 Open/Closed: Open
 Discussion Lock: Any
Operating System: GNU/Linux


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Follow-up Comments:


---
Date: Thu 23 Jun 2022 06:29:37 AM CEST By: Bruno Haible 
A configure script that is built with libtool 2.4.7 has the options
('configure --help' output):

  --with-pic[=PKGS]   try to use only PIC/non-PIC objects [default=use
  both]
  --with-aix-soname=aix|svr4|both
  shared library versioning (aka "SONAME") variant to
  provide on AIX, [default=aix].


Per the GNU Coding Standards,
https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Configuration.html, these options
ought to be called --enable-something, not --with-something.

Probably you'll need to continue to support the --with-* spelling for a while,
though, for backward compatibility.







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