> And why would it make zero sense to have a pam_bsdauth.so ?
> if nothing else it would provide a simple hook for folk to implement
> simple authentication scripts such as those Peter Seebach mentioned.
> Folk that fear/loath shared libs need not of course install it of course. 

It's not a fear or loathing of shared libs. It's disgust for overly
complex APIs and inflexible designs like PAM.