Christos said:

<quote>
Well, this is the way OS/X went, and it was a bitch for me to  
bootstrap the emulation code because I could not build a statically  
linked binary. Trying to get the emulation going with a dynamically  
linked binary was a pain in the ass because too much stuff needed to  
go right before I even started executing main(). Yes, this is a  
limited case and I agree with you that we should make .a's optional in  
the install, but I would hate to completely lose the ability to  
produce statically linked binaries like OS/X has. There are still a  
few corner cases (installers, standalone programs) that can benefit  
from static linking.
</quote>


I didn't suggest removing the ability to make static binaries.  "De- 
support" doesn't mean "make it not work".  It does mean, however,  
"don't bother putting effort into it".

-- thorpej