The original reasoning for shared libraries was reducing memory footprint -- back then memory was scarce. We're talking back in the days of SVR2, the mid-80s.

The original reasoning for shared libraries was reducing memory footprint -- back then memory was scarce. We're talking back in the days of SVR2, the mid-80s. The original reasoning for ELF was that static link semantics suck. ELF's semantics are far superior (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23656173).