Re: fully supporting static lining in NetBSD (ar "zero" flag)

[der Mouse <mouse%Rodents-Montreal.ORG@localhost>]

> [M]y assertion that modern systems "require in some way the use of
> runtime dynamic link/loading of code" is based on what I have
> observed of user expectations ...

I don't think that's quite fair.  Users don't expect dynamic linking.
They expect certain capabilities, capabilities which NetBSD currently
chooses to implement with dynamic linking.  Much of gwoods's point (at
least as I see it) is that these are not at all the same thing.

> certainly not all users (since you are obviously so biased against
> the notion of dynamic extensibility).

I don't think that's fair.  I don't see gwoods arguing for doing away
with the ability to link dynamically, merely arguing against compelling
its use.  I don't see him biased against dynamic linking, just biased
against having no choice but dynamic linking.

> Well, it's my opinion that an OS that does not provide such a feature
> is antiquated.

So what?  Once again, nobody here is arguing for doing away with
dynamic linking.  Only for doing away with (or, rather, not bringing
in) _requiring_ dynamic linking.

>> Indeed as a contributor and user of NetBSD I'm fully willing and
>> able to help as much as I can to maintain the ability of NetBSD to
>> make full use of all its modern features when it is built as a
>> static-only binary distribution.
> I can't really say that I've seen you contribute code in this area
> thus far...

What do you honestly think would have happened if he'd tried?  (I would
expect he'd get a "we're not interested" of some form.  You seem to
think, presumably accurately, that NetBSD does not consider it a bug
that (say) PAM doesn't work when linked -static, making it unlikely a
fix for it would be accepted.)

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