Policy: Discourage statically linked binaries

[debian/debian-policy.git] / policy.sgml

diff --git a/policy.sgml b/policy.sgml
index fa0a390cf08308c5ed2c57886845ec64e9a66d18..c5fd30586c505a1805f90e2d9b833ae2cf4a1c2e 100644 (file)
--- a/policy.sgml
+++ b/policy.sgml
@@ -8466,7 +8466,17 @@ fi
          renamed.  If a consensus cannot be reached, <em>both</em>
          programs must be renamed.
        </p>
-
+       <p>
+          Binary executables must not be statically linked with the GNU C
+          library, since this prevents the binary from benefiting from
+          fixes and improvements to the C library without being rebuilt
+          and complicates security updates.  This requirement may be
+          relaxed for binary executables whose intended purpose is to
+          diagnose and fix the system in situations where the GNU C
+          library may not be usable (such as system recovery shells or
+          utilities like ldconfig) or for binary executables where the
+          security benefits of static linking outweigh the drawbacks.
+       </p>
        <p>
          By default, when a package is being built, any binaries
          created should include debugging information, as well as