Yup, and it seems we forgot about static linking, then broke it, and now are reinventing it in new and convoluted ways. I do think Linux could make smarter use

Yup, and it seems we forgot about static linking, then broke it, and now are reinventing it in new and convoluted ways. I do think Linux could make smarter use of static linking in places. Weird, esoteric and tiny libraries with unstable APIs make terrible shared libraries and are a constant source of irritation. Static linking has it's place, and so does shared libraries.