Andreas K. Huettel posted on Sun, 23 Oct 2011 15:50:04 +0200 as excerpted:

> I'd like to get my standards up to speed, so may I respectfully ask-
> what is,
> apart from link time, the Gentoo-user-visible difference between *
> removing the .a files in the ebuild * and not building them in the first
> place?

If it was only link-time, that might be a point for simply removing them 
after link.

But if static libs are built at all, on amd64, it's not simply the link-
time at issue, but forces an actual double-build at least for the libs, 
once with -fPIC for dynamic linking, once without, for the static libs, 
(and executables if any).

Ask the mysql guys about the trouble they had with mysql-embedded on 
amd64, and the kde guys about the trouble with amarok for kde4 on amd64, 
as a result.

Interestingly enough, unless I've misunderstood, this issue would be 
affected by the recent security-based -fPIC/-fPIE on amd64 by default 
discussion as well, since if everything (including static libs) were 
built with at least -fPIC as required for dynamic linking, then a single 
build, linked once each for static and dynamic, as common on x86 (32-bit) 
would be at least arguably acceptable.  (IOW, my point here isn't to 
argue whether that'd be acceptable or not, but rather, that the forced 
double-build factor on amd64 is much more an issue than simple double-
linking would be.)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman