KDE3 libthai dynamic loading unneccessarily requires libtool archive file

KHTML makes use of libthai (http://sourceforge.net/projects/libthai) in identifying possible word breaking positions in Thai text (as Thai has no space as word boundaries) (Ref: khtml/rendering/break_lines.cpp). There are two methods to link libthai: explicit linking (configure --enable-libthai) or dynamic loading using KLibLoader.

In Debian/Ubuntu KHTML+libthai has been working fine through the dynamic loading method. However KLibLoader requires libtool archive file to work (that is, libthai.la), therefore users must install libthai0 and libthai-dev in order to have KHTML rendered Thai text properly, which is somewhat strange, but at least working.

But in the recent versions of libthai (0.1.9-1), this libthai.la file was removed, (Ref: http://changelogs.ubuntu.com/changelogs/pool/main/libt/libthai/libthai_0.1.9-1/changelog).

Hence, Thai word breaking in KDE/KHTML is not working anymore.

Possible solutions:
1) explicitly link libthai into kdelibs (i.e., make kdelibs depend on libthai0)
2) fix the khtml code to NOT require libthai.la (which actually makes sense). One solution is to use QLibrary instead of KLibLoader.
The patch will be attached (or online accessible at:
http://linux.thai.net/viewvc/viewvc.cgi/software/kde/kdelibs-3.5.6/kdelibs-3_5_6-thai-break-qlibrary-instead-of-klibloader.patch.txt?view=log)

For 2) we did send the patch to the kde-devel list since September 2007. And the answers were:

"This is a Debian specific packaging bug. Many distributions are still shipping libtool archive files. Please contact the packagers of KDE for Debian via http://bugs.debian.org/. "
( http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=119104527320060&w=2 )

"it's a distro bug if they make KDE 3 stop working -- it's been working for years like that.:"
( http://lists.kde.org/?l=kde-devel&m=119105494901329&w=2

So, we filed the bug at Debian: http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=444284 and so far the problem hasn't been fixed yet.

The problem exists in Ubuntu too so I'd like to report it here and hope that it will be fixed as soon as possible. Solution 1) or 2) is both OK. Thank you very much in advance.