Bug 248813

Fedora Packaging Guidelines strongly encourage not to ship static libs unless a
compelling reason exists (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging/Guidelines).

The ssldump configure script should be fixed instead.

Hello.

In that particular case, I can agree that ssldump's configure script should be
fixed, because of it is broken logic to check for .a file and then build
dynamically with .so.

I must also respect that there will be less and less static libraries shipped
with Fedora distribution.

On the other hand, the fact that static libraries are unavailable with Fedora,
is IMHO no good. Having -static packages as mentioned in the document referenced
by you would do much better. In fact, if you have some really huge software
project that produces huge and comlex executables consisting mainly of
application code, then statical linking does not add relatively much to them and
statically linked binary is the best way to get application running on more
systems, where single and small upgraded .so can break your the application
completely. (Of course, there are also known disadvantages of statical linking.) 

And just for fun, here is a little snapshot taken on my small home installation
of F7. :-)

Brgds,

Ed

[root@vel tmp]# date
Thu Jul 19 12:19:29 CEST 2007
[root@vel tmp]# for a in `ls  /usr/lib/*.a`; do p=`rpm -qf $a`; echo "$a $p";
done | grep \\.fc7$
/usr/lib/libasound.a alsa-lib-devel-1.0.14-0.4.rc3.fc7
/usr/lib/libaudit.a audit-libs-devel-1.5.3-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libauparse.a audit-libs-devel-1.5.3-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libbind.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libbind9.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libbluetooth.a bluez-libs-devel-3.9-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libbz2.a bzip2-devel-1.0.4-10.fc7
/usr/lib/libcrypto.a openssl-devel-0.9.8b-12.fc7
/usr/lib/libdns.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libecpg.a postgresql-devel-8.2.4-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libecpg_compat.a postgresql-devel-8.2.4-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libelf.a elfutils-libelf-devel-static-0.128-2.fc7
/usr/lib/libexslt.a libxslt-devel-1.1.21-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libfl.a flex-2.5.33-9.fc7
/usr/lib/libgd.a gd-devel-2.0.34-2.fc7
/usr/lib/libgdbm.a gdbm-devel-1.8.0-27.fc7
/usr/lib/libgnutls-extra.a gnutls-devel-1.4.5-2.fc7
/usr/lib/libgnutls-openssl.a gnutls-devel-1.4.5-2.fc7
/usr/lib/libgnutls.a gnutls-devel-1.4.5-2.fc7
/usr/lib/libisc.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libisccc.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libisccfg.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libkpathsea.a tetex-fonts-3.0-39.fc7
/usr/lib/libl.a flex-2.5.33-9.fc7
/usr/lib/liblockdev.a lockdev-devel-1.0.1-11.fc7
/usr/lib/liblwres.a bind-devel-9.4.1-6.1.fc7
/usr/lib/libmikmod.a mikmod-devel-3.2.2-2.fc7
/usr/lib/libname-server-2.a ORBit2-devel-2.14.7-3.fc7
/usr/lib/libnet.a libnet-devel-1.1.2.1-10.fc7
/usr/lib/libpci.a pciutils-devel-2.2.4-3.fc7
/usr/lib/libpgport.a postgresql-devel-8.2.4-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libpgtypes.a postgresql-devel-8.2.4-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libpopt.a popt-1.10.2-46.fc7
/usr/lib/libpq.a postgresql-devel-8.2.4-1.fc7
/usr/lib/librpm.a rpm-devel-4.4.2-46.fc7
/usr/lib/librpmbuild.a rpm-devel-4.4.2-46.fc7
/usr/lib/librpmdb.a rpm-devel-4.4.2-46.fc7
/usr/lib/librpmio.a rpm-devel-4.4.2-46.fc7
/usr/lib/libselinux.a libselinux-devel-2.0.14-4.fc7
/usr/lib/libsepol.a libsepol-devel-2.0.3-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libssl.a openssl-devel-0.9.8b-12.fc7
/usr/lib/libxml2.a libxml2-devel-2.6.29-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libxslt.a libxslt-devel-1.1.21-1.fc7
/usr/lib/libz.a zlib-devel-1.2.3-10.fc7
[root@vel tmp]#      

Well, this topic was thoroughly discussed on fedora-devel list. 

Please search the archives for "static linking" or have a look at:
http://people.redhat.com/drepper/no_static_linking.html

Just for completeness: Package ssldump is part of Fedora 11+ and EPEL 4/5.

If I remember well, the last time i have checked Fedora source rpm, some patches, considered by me as "must have" were missing. Please take a look at (for example)

http://download.opensuse.org/source/distribution/11.2/repo/oss/suse/src/ssldump-0.9b3-233.1.src.rpm

Brgds,

Ed

Eduard, if something is missing in the Fedora ssldump source RPM, please open
bug reports and tell exactly what is missing or wrong. I won't check a foreign
source RPM just because somebody mentions differences.

Robert: OK, I will do so, probably during the next weekend. I am so busy just now.

IMHO the main thing added by patches packaged in Suse source rpm is support for more ciphers. I have two or three patch sources for ssldump, so I will try to summarize.

Brgds,

Ed

Robert:

now that ssldump-0.9-0.2.b3.fc12.i686 is out in F12 updates, I am happy to see that you did not resist sooner than I managed my time to allow me to look at it:

* Tue Apr 06 2010 Robert Scheck <robert> 0.9-0.2.b3
- Added a patch to support AES cipher-suites (#248813 #c5)
- Added backporting patch from CVS 2006-06-19 (#248813 #c5)

I can only say thank you, that's it! And this means that I have just switched back to standard F12 ssldump as I have no longer reason to build my own openssl rpm.

Brgds,

Ed.

s/openssl/ssldump/