Static linking considered harmful

[Chris Adams]

Once upon a time, Axel Thimm <Axel.Thimm at ATrpms.net> said:
> FWIW again from the number crunching community, sometimes statically
> linking numerical libs shows performance gains (although when the
> problem domain is of that kind the libs tend to be headers-only with
> inlining), and some only commercial available libs only offer static
> libs.

Not all the number crunching community statically links.  For example,
my father works for NASA, and for his project, they rebuild from source
everywhere.  This is a requirement since they run the project on a
number of platforms (Linux, Solaris, Windows/Cygwin, Tru64, IRIX).

> Which brings yet another argument in favour of not disallowing
> statically builds: ISVs love to use these in order to have one build
> for the whole Linux world.

Unless these vendors include object code suitable for re-linking against
a different glibc, they are violating the LGPL if they link against
glibc.
-- 
Chris Adams <cmadams at hiwaay.net>
Systems and Network Administrator - HiWAAY Internet Services
I don't speak for anybody but myself - that's enough trouble.