In article <20031005084950.124C33F07C2@trinity.ihack.net>,
	"Charles M. Hannum" <abuse@spamalicious.com> writes:
> So, we currently do not install .so versions of several X libraries,
> including libXinerama and libxkbfile.

We do that because the XFree86 people consider the interfaces provided
by these libraries as unstable and don't offer shared versions therefore.

> This causes libtool, when linking various plugin modules in KDE,
> xine, and other places, to fail to make those plugins into .so
> files, and therefore they do not get loaded by the normal plugin
> loaders.

Matthieu Herb fixed that *properly* in OpenBSD a while ago:

----- Forwarded message from Matthieu Herrb <matthieu@cvs.openbsd.org> -----

Date: Wed, 15 Jan 2003 15:59:40 -0700 (MST)
From: Matthieu Herrb <matthieu@cvs.openbsd.org>
To: source-changes@cvs.openbsd.org
Subject: CVS: cvs.openbsd.org: XF4

CVSROOT:        /cvs
Module name:    XF4
Changes by:     matthieu@cvs.openbsd.org        2003/01/15 15:59:40

Modified files:
        xc/config/cf   : Imake.rules Library.tmpl 
        xc/lib/FS      : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/GLw     : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xau     : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xdmcp   : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xfontcache: Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xinerama: Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xss     : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xv      : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/XvMC    : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xxf86dga: Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xxf86misc: Imakefile 
        xc/lib/Xxf86vm : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/fontenc : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/xkbfile : Imakefile 
        xc/lib/xkbui   : Imakefile 
Log message:
Build a _pic.a version of X libraries that only exist as static libs, for
use by ports which need to build a .so with this code. Ok fries@

----- End forwarded message -----

Feel free to implement that for our X11 sources.

> There is no reasonable way to fix this other than to build shared
> versions of the libraries, ...

That's not true, see above.

> RedHat and Solaris both install .so versions of all the libraries --

Which doesn't mean it is the right thing. Actually it was their bad
pratice which caused this problem initially.

> Losing like this is not a viable option. I'm tired of this bullshit.

In that case implement the *correct* fix.

> Therefore, I am going to make our X build compile and install:

Will you also handle the fall out caused by this? E.g. touching all the
affected packages, fixing the 1.6 branch distribution sets etc.?

	Kind regards

-- 
Matthias Scheler                                  http://scheler.de/~matthias/