On the one hand, libboost_python.so on Linux [...] is not directly linked to libpythonx.y.so. [...]
on gentoo it is.
Shall I understand that you patch our code to achieve that?
[...]
But we take very strongly care of correct linking, as we are support parallel installation of all python versions from 2.4-3.2 with all having their own boost_python-*.so
I understand it matters a lot then indeed. We can afford to be lazy because we ship one single version of boost_python.so
extensions that are loaded by Python at runtime, and then of course the Python exec is linked to libpythonx.y.so. So we first need to understand why the gold linker complains for libscitbx_boost_python but not for libboost_python or for any of the cctbx Boost Python extensions that directly use the Python API. I must admit I don't have a clue here. And then considering what you both told me, we need to fix the problem upstream.
[...] But I think we should try to ensure that libscitbx_boost_python and friends are correctly linked to libboost_python.so. This won't harm in best case and is required in worst case.
Ok. I can't think of any such friends right now in fact!
And on gentoo as well as on all other distros which support multiple python ABIs to be installed, we need to ensure that the correct soname is recorded so that the correct python ABI version of libboost_python is loaded.
One of the patch proposed by the Debian team aims at that goal if I understood correctly (0007-adding-shlib-versioning). Luc