Re: [Buildroot] [PATCH 1/1] package/boost: add option to force static build

["Yann E. MORIN" <yann.morin.1998@free.fr>]

Paul, All,

On 2022-07-27 16:42 +0100, Paul Cercueil spake thusly:
> Le mer., juil. 27 2022 at 17:06:52 +0200, Romain Naour
> <romain.naour@smile.fr> a écrit :
> >Le 20/06/2022 à 13:55, Paul Cercueil a écrit :
> >> This option can be useful when building for a system that
> >> needs to somewhat maintain compatibility with previously built
> >> software, as Boost is notorious for breaking ABI at every
> >> single release.

If you need to link with boost libs, it means your program already know
the correct ABI?

I mean, you have two situations:
  - you have sources for your program: you don't care about ABI
    breakage, because you will build from source, so the compiler and
    linker knows what to do, so you don't need to force static libs?

  - you have a .o file for your package's, and you can actually link
    with the static libs, so it means you have the proper ABI, so why
    can't you link with the shared ones?

Now, if you have a binary-only executable, then you don't need to link
it at all.

So, I am not sure I see what the actual issue is...

Also, I don't think it is sane, as Romain pointed out, that the whole
Boost is bilt statically for the whole system; that does not fly with
me...

> >After discussing with Thomas and Arnout, we are not convinced by this
> >patch.

Neither am I...

> Yes, I know that a similar per-package option could be added to all
> packages, and I know that we (both you and me) don't want that. My argument
> is that none of the other packages (that I know of) break ABI at every
> single minor version. Only Boost does that, and it makes it completely
> impossible to support old programs.
> 
> I've been doing this trick of compiling static builds of Boost since
> Buildroot 2014.05 and the majority of binaries built back then still run
> with my current distribution based on Buildroot 2021.08. Programs built
> against shared Boost would break every 3 months.

I don't understand what you are saying here. Do you mean that you built
binaries back in 2014, and drop them in your shinny new system, and they
still run? That's fine, do that: install pre-built binaries of your
application: you don't need to build a static boost on the whole system
for that.

Now, if what you need is a way to initially be able to build those
programs to start with, and link them statically, so that you can
install them as binary prebuilt, then build a static-only SDK, build
your programs, and drop them in your other configuration that has Boost
available as shared for the rest of the system.

Of course, unless there is something else I missed (entirely possible
as I am having a very bad day today and can't think totally right).

Regards,
Yann E. MORIN.

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