While I'm not sure I agree 100% with Fedora's policy that everything(?) must by dynamically linked... I think it has a lot of benefits besides the actual reason

While I'm not sure I agree 100% with Fedora's policy that everything(?) must by dynamically linked... I think it has a lot of benefits besides the actual reasons for dynamic linking. I'm not an expert but I have observed a few things over the years using and building packages. First off, dynamic linking does not seem to make updating software impossible. There are several rolling release Linux distros (Archlinux, Debian-unstable, Void, Gentoo, etc.) and basically everything works while releasing upstream updates within 2-4 weeks typically. Most are maintained by volunteers. The number of core packages that break due to shared libraries is single digits in my experience of Archlinux over the last 5-8 years. Sure some things are shipped as pre-compiled packages which just come with their own library directories so they can load the versions they need. I will say that I have encountered software that was library hell. This software tended to be academic in nature and use really poor build processes like having dozens of make files while being developed on ancient versions of Ubuntu. The software was not vaporware or abandoned it was just poorly developed. Even if static linking would help - the developers choose not to use it out of ignorance. Other software that has issues with libraries tend to be very large applications where the overhead of shipping an alternative LD_LIBRARY_PATH or 'Docker' container is minimal and has other benefits as well. I cannot imagine how many projects will actually keep their libraries up to date. Electron apps are already often using old Electron versions causing issues where the Electron version won't support Wayland as well as the browser version. I have stopped using the desktop versions of apps like Microsoft Teams and Slack because of this issue. If large companies can't be bothered to update their flagship desktop applications libraries - how can we expect small, open source projects to do better? They no doubt use community feedback from distro maintainers & users to maintain compatibility with upstream libraries. Plus if static linking is used to an extreme amount then their will be N-~1 more versions to 'maintain'. Any popular library/dependency will become a defacto supported version; just look how long it took apps to move to Python 3. Heck, the 'chromium' package seems to still require Python 2 as a build dependency. Even 'Cellebrite', as evil as the program is, was hacked in part because it shipped with out of date libraries and it is probably has a multi-million dollar price tag. TLDR: Developers of all levels suck at keeping dependencies updated. The distro system & build process provide s a much needed barrier between application development and sanity. It's basically the final code review for the Linux & open source ecosystem. That said static linking certainly has its place but also has its own set of issues.