[Mesa-dev] Statically linking libstdc++ and libgcc

[Ian Romanick]

On 03/11/2015 09:31 AM, Tobias Klausmann wrote:
> The problem in not forcing this to link statically is, that if a
> distribution decides to not use this static option, the problem persists
> on that distribution. On top every lib pulled in by steam from the
> system would need to be link statically, like mesa. Instead of fixing
> every lib steam pulls in (how many are there?), fix the steam runtime to

Yeah, static linking is a terrible, partial solution.

> a) not ship libstdc++.so and libgcc_s.so and declare older version of
> these libs as not supported (thats what people do when they face the
> incompatibility problem with steams versions of these libs: just delete
> them from the runtime and everything is fine)

Let's be 100% clear.  This is NOT an option for Steam.  They ship
thousands of closed-source applications.  These applications were built
and tested against specific versions of specific libraries.  Removing
support for old run-times is equivalent to removing support for those
applications.  They can't tell their customers, "You upgraded your
distro, so that game you paid money for no longer works.  Tough break, kid."

Forcing an application to use a newer run-time may work over the short
term, but do you think that will still work in 5 years?  It's possible,
but it seems unlikely.  And "seems to work" is not the same as "works
all the way through the whole game every time."