Fwd: Automagic dependency on selinux

[Johan Hattne]

The build system for gnulib automagically detects and links against
libselinux. This causes trouble if e.g. findutils are compiled on a host
where selinux is present, but run on a system without.  See also

  https://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=330139.

The attached patch is only meant to illustrate the sort of solution I
had in mind in the special case of findutils-4.4.8, namely some sort
--enable/disable-selinux option to the configure script.  This issue was
originally reported for findutils, see

  http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?30608

// Best wishes; Johan


On 08/15/10 07:23, James Youngman wrote:

> Follow-up Comment #1:
> 
> Sorry about my delay in response.   Let me check I understood you:
> 
> - you want to be able to forcibly prevent linking against the shared
> libraries for selinux in order to be able to build on system A (which has
> selinux) and run it on system B (which does not)?
> 
> If so, I sympathise.  However, many GNU tools are developed under the
> assumption that the system takes responsibility for a certain amount of
> backward compatibility.  That is, that it will in general be possible to build
> on an old system and run on a new system.  There's generally no assumption
> about the reverse hodling.
> 
> However, "old" vs. "new" and "with-selinux" vs. "without-selinux" is I
> suppose orthogonal.
> 
> As you indicated though, the right place to make any change of this type is
> gnulib.  Could you raise this issue on address@hidden please?

findutils-4.5.8-selinux.patch
Description: Text document