libnetcdf.a file no longer provided by libnetcdf-dev package

[Sebastiaan Couwenberg]

On 12/15/2017 01:33 PM, philippe marty wrote:
> On 12/13/2017 06:54 PM, Sebastiaan Couwenberg wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, 13 Dec 2017 18:38:52 +0100 philippe marty wrote:
>>> When building third party software (namely NOAA's ferret, a.k.a.
>>> ferret-vis on debian package system), it appears the file libnetcdf.a is
>>> missing on the system, despite the libnetcdf11 and libnetcdf-dev
>>> packages being properly installed.
>>
>> The static libraries are no longer built, and are highly unlikely to be
>> reinstated.
>>
>>> This makes this libnetcdf-dev package almost unusable as is, and also
>>> prevents most other softwares to build against it ... though this is no
>>> security breach, nor system break nor data loss.
>>
>> Software using netcdf should dynamically link to libnetcdf.
> 
> Thanks for your prompt answer !
> 
> I am not sure to get it right from "The static libraries are no longer
> built" : does that mean it is a general debian-pkg policy, or just a
> particular netcdf-pkg policy ?

When the netcdf package switched to using CMake for the build, the
static libraries were dropped. Automake based projects build static
libraries by default, CMake projects do not.

There is not enough demand for static libraries to warrant the
maintenance burden of getting them to be built again.

> As for the "Software using netcdf should dynamically link" : in between
> the ideal of a perfect developpers society always linking dynamically
> [...], there are scientists trying to survive in
> the real world ... If compiling Ferret links to static netcdf rather
> than dynamic lib, perhaps there is a not so wrong reason ?

I've not heard a good reason to require the static libraries.

If you need the static libraries in netcdf, you'll need to either modify
the package to build them again, or build netcdf from source yourself.

Kind Regards,

Bas

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