On Thu, Oct 20, 2011 at 4:05 AM, Peter Dyballa <peter_dyba...@web.de> wrote: > > Am 20.10.2011 um 12:53 schrieb Chris Travers: > >> However, statically linking things strikes me as even worse from a >> stability/security perspective (which is what is critical with server >> software). It means that if there is a bug in any of the libraries >> you have possibly linked to, you have to upgrade everything. > > This is what the TeX Live package manager performs. The providers of TeX Live > do the whole job. > I think you miss the point. When something went wrong with zlib in 2002, software from the Apache Web Server to Microsoft Office required security patches. Now, I take it you figure that TexLive 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, will not get such security patches.... So that means if such a problem affected you, everyone would have to upgrade to the latest version, possibly breaking any automated document generation in the process, *just to get the security fix.*
This is why external TexLive distributions are bad ideas on server systems, though they are great for workstations, and why many of us then end up working with the distro-supplied packages, as they are not statically linked. [root@chris-dev2 ledgersmb_1.3]# ldd /usr/bin/latex linux-gate.so.1 => (0x00f3a000) libpng12.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpng12.so.0 (0x003ae000) libz.so.1 => /lib/libz.so.1 (0x00d6b000) libkpathsea.so.4 => /usr/lib/libkpathsea.so.4 (0x00d80000) libpoppler.so.5 => /usr/lib/libpoppler.so.5 (0x04516000) libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/libstdc++.so.6 (0x040c0000) libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x00d1b000) libgcc_s.so.1 => /lib/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x040a0000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x00b8e000) liblcms.so.1 => /usr/lib/liblcms.so.1 (0x04ae1000) libjpeg.so.62 => /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62 (0x0478e000) libfreetype.so.6 => /usr/lib/libfreetype.so.6 (0x003d8000) libfontconfig.so.1 => /usr/lib/libfontconfig.so.1 (0x00485000) libopenjpeg.so.2 => /usr/lib/libopenjpeg.so.2 (0x005af000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x00b6c000) libexpat.so.1 => /lib/libexpat.so.1 (0x00384000) So if libz needs a security update, I can get it without replacing everything else.... Best Wishes, Chris Travers -------------------------------------------------- Subscriptions, Archive, and List information, etc.: http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/xetex