Re: [bug-gnu-libiconv] libiconv-1.15

[Bruno Haible]

Michael Felt wrote:
> > Is there something like Homebrew/MacPorts/Fink/OpenPKG/OpenCSW for AIX?
> Yes - the most popular would be perzl (http://www.perzl.org/aix/) and 
> bullfreeware (http://www.bullfreeware.com/).
> IBM also has something called the AIX Toolbox. It was more or less idle, 
> due to legal concerns I suspect (the suit from SCO) but seems to be 
> 'restarting' at: 
> http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/power/software/aix/linux/toolbox/alpha.html

Interesting. Thanks for the education.

> There is a danger for packagers - as myself: the new archive gets the 
> shr*.o file of the packaging system and not necessarily one as new as 
> the system the pre-packaged version gets installed on.

Ah, I understand now. The issue is due to these "multi-arch" .o files.
Usually a binary package consists of a set files that can be installed.
But here we need to install a .o _into_ an existing .a file. Do you have
a recommendation to give how to accommodate this in the build system of
GNU packages in general?

In the GNU/Linux camp such an idea of "fat binaries" has come up as well
[1] but it was dropped soon [2].

> RPM are constructed using a so-called .spec file. One of the sections of 
> the spec file is the %post (similar to %post in kickstart).

I don't think the upstream author of a package should provide these
.spec files, right?

Bruno

[1] https://icculus.org/fatelf/
[2] http://www.osnews.com/story/22446/Ryan_Gordon_Halts_FatELF_Project