Inconsistent build behaviour in Makefile - statically and dynamically linked built binary

[stefancocora]

Is this a BUG REPORT or FEATURE REQUEST?:

BUG REPORT

What happened:
While building upstream archlinux packages for kubeless I've come across what looks to me like inconsistent build behavior/workflow.
See the dependencies list between:
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=kubeless-bin#n13
and
https://aur.archlinux.org/cgit/aur.git/tree/PKGBUILD?h=kubeless-git#n12

I've followed these steps to create a build from the latest git tag https://github.com/kubeless/kubeless/blob/master/.circleci/config.yml#L77-L105
Is it expected behaviour that the binary-cross make rule that is used during github releases creates a statically linked pkg while the make binary/all are forced to be dynamically linked ?

What you expected to happen:
I expected that a build from the latest git would behave in the same manner as a github release build and yield a statically linked binary.

How to reproduce it (as minimally and precisely as possible):
Git clone the latest master and run make binary , you'll get:

  ldd ./kubeless
	  linux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffdf75e2000)
	  libpthread.so.0 => /usr/lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007f76665f1000)
	  libc.so.6 => /usr/lib/libc.so.6 (0x00007f766642d000)
	  /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 => /usr/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007f766664b000)

A github released binary is statically linked by default.

  ldd $(which kubeless)
          not a dynamic executable

Anything else we need to know?:

Environment:

• Kubernetes version (use kubectl version): N/A
• Kubeless version (use kubeless version): Kubeless version: v1.0.0-3-g026071aa
• Cloud provider or physical cluster: N/A

[andresmgot]

Hi @stefancocora,

Indeed there is an inconsistency between the task that builds the controller and the linux binary (make binary) and the one that generate the cross-compiled ones. The former sets the env var CGO_ENABLED to 1 and that's the reason. I don't think there's a good reason to keep doing that since we are releasing the statically linked ones.