F26 System Wide Change: Debugging Information For Static Libraries

[Jan Kurik]

= Proposed System Wide Change: Debugging Information For Static Libraries =
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Changes/StaticLibraryDebuginfo

Change owner(s):
* Florian Weimer <fweimer AT redhat DOT com>

This change proposes to ship debugging information in static libraries.


== Detailed Description ==
At present, rpm strips static libraries and discards the debugging
information in them (that is, the debugging information is not copied
into the -debuginfo packages). After that, there is no way to recover
the debugging information, say if it is needed to analyze an issue in
a statically linked application.

This change proposes to stop stripping static libraries. To improve
debugging experience, it is desirable that the static libraries are
still rewritten at RPM build time, to point the file references to the
final location under /usr/src/debug.

The technical side of this change is tracked in bug 1395280.


== Scope ==
* Proposal owners: rpm needs to be changed to stop stripping static
libraries. If possible, static libraries should still be rewritten so
that the debugging information points to the source files under
/usr/src/debug, for optimum developer experience.

* Other developers: Some packages copy static libraries into places
where rpm cannot find them, so that they are not stripped. These
changes are not strictly necessary, but can reduce RPM/installation
size for developer packages.

* Release engineering: This change requires a mass rebuild to become
fully effective.

* List of deliverables: No release blocking deliverables.

* Policies and guidelines: no changes proposed (change will be
implemented through rpm)

* Trademark approval: N/A (not needed for this Change)
-- 
Jan Kuřík
Platform & Fedora Program Manager
Red Hat Czech s.r.o., Purkynova 99/71, 612 45 Brno, Czech Republic