You seem to be assuming that a statically linked library won't have a subtle, edge-case bug, when in fact, it doesn't just work. Even that could be env-related

You seem to be assuming that a statically linked library won't have a subtle, edge-case bug, when in fact, it doesn't just work. Even that could be env-related, so maybe it surfaced once you moved to a new Fedora release. Basically, the problems are pretty much the same with either approach, one has a more complex runtime environment, other has a more complex upgrade story. While I'd agree with Linus' take on shared libraries, I'd still say that "statically linked libraries are not a good thing in general either" (the stress is on general).