On Thu, Oct 27, 2005 at 10:24:51AM -0400, Todd Vierling wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Oct 2005, Geert Hendrickx wrote:
> 
> > > It is deprecated, but a very importantly supported feature.  There are
> > > reasons to set it, not the least of which is to test libraries in
> > > non-installed state (libtool, among others, depends on this ability).
> >
> > Could this possibly enable us to build libraries and dependant packages in
> > a subdir != ${PREFIX}, without actually installing anything?
> 
> Among other things, yes.  This is similar to how multiple interdependent
> shlibs in the same source tree work.  If you need to run an in-tree
> application that depends on those libraries as part of the build, you need a
> way to get at those shlibs without installing them to the final rpath.

Unless you statically compile those tools in a bootstrap stage.  

	Geert