Please remove all %{_libdir}/lib*.la files from the package. This will reduce libtool/library bloat. Further, it will (mostly) solve the problem of needing to install extreneous packages(*) in order to build anything that uses subversion-devel. (*) like libselinux-devel, beecrypt-devel, elfutils-devel (mostly Library) packages with .la files of their own that BuildRequires: subversion-devel (probably) will need to be rebuilt after this modification. If insist in still including the .la files (and static libraries), 1. please package them separately into something like subversion-static or subversion-devel-static, so it would be possible to omit via BuildConflicts 2. The package that includes the .la files (if being kept, or being packaged separately), needs to add Requires: to account for the library references in said .la files, including (at least): neon-devel (reference to /usr/lib/libneon.la) krb-devel (references to -lgssapi_krb5 -lkrb5 -lk5crypto -lkrb5support) db4-devel (reference to /usr/lib/libdb-4.3.la) openldap-devel (reference to -lldap -llber) expat-devel (reference to /usr/lib/libexpat.la)
Oops, ignore my incorrect (*) like libselinux-devel, beecrypt-devel, elfutils-devel reference. See (2) for the list of extraneous BR's.
This one needs to be dealt with carefully. Just found that removing these .la files breaks at least one package: kdesdk. It tries to link against subversion using only -lsvn_client-1, and without the livsvn_client-1.la file to list the extra libraries, yields undefined symbols. I would argue that this is a bug in kdesdk, since it technically uses functions/symbols from libraries it's not directly linking against (and depending on libtool to simply pull in everything).
Well, quite. You can't link against the libraries if those dependencies are missing anyway, so I don't see what this gains. WONTFIX, again. The static libs are already gone which removes the real bloat.