Re:Dynamic linking
by AnIdiotOnTheNet on Saturday June 27, 2020 @10:16AM
(#23661961)
> Sure, but I think the most important reason people have in mind when they argue for dynamic linking is that they will receive upstream bugfixes.
Ironic considering that the package manager/repo model is largely implemented as a solution to issues with dynamic linking and yet makes getting up to date software from the developer much harder by introducing a third-party maintainer into the process.
Why would you not receive upstream bug fixes with statically linked programs? Assuming you are using an Apt-style package manager then the statically linked program would be rebuilt and updated too.
If you are not using an apt-style package manager then the program must include all of its dependencies (except ones that are guaranteed to be present on the platform, which is none on Linux and a few on Mac/Windows), and you will receive bug fixes when that program is updated, whether or not it uses static linking.
Static/dynamic linking does not affect how likely you are to get bug fixes in any way as far as I can tell.
The first hurdle is that you require source code to do any of this. Then you need to actually rebuild everything.
You are of course right, though, and writing it down like this can be useful.