Comment 4 for bug 7655

* Nathanael Nerode <email address hidden> [2004-08-28T07:14:15-0400]:
> Package: libmpeg2-4
> Version: 0.4.0b-2
> Severity: serious
> Justification: 5.f (Sarge RC showstoppers)
>
> libmpeg2.so.0 has a TEXTREL entry. This means that it contains non-PIC code
> and can't be prelinked against.
>
> Policy requires that shared libraries are compiled with -fPIC. (Unless
> there's a really really good excuse, of course.)
>

-fPIC is not used for performance reasons. On older machines it can
make the difference between being able to decode a dvd or not. On newer
faster machines it probably doesn't matter as much. For one reason or
another it seems the only remaining architectures that can deal without
-fPIC are i?86 and k?. Is there anyway around the prelinking issue that
would allow non-PIC code to be used? It would be unfortunate to have to
cripple a library that is so well optimized.

-dave