[Clipart] Announcing Inkscape 0.40 Release

[Carl Worth]

On Tue, 30 Nov 2004 19:01:37 -0500, "Jonadab the Unsightly One" wrote:
>   I'll want, but this underscores the single largest problem IMO in
>   open-source today: excessive use of dynamic linking makes upgrades
>   painful beyond the bounds of all reason.

The problem of a single application upgrade requiring many libraries to
also be upgraded has been solved in any number distributions with good
package managers. If you're not yet using one, I would recommend you
try one out.

> The take-home message is this:  Static linking is GOOD, and the world
> needs more of it.

No. Static linking leads to bug propagation. This is especially bad when
there are security bugs in well-used libraries, (for example the zlib
bug from some time ago). Widespread use of static linking makes it much
harder to get security fixes out since it requires updating many
applications. With dynamic linking, only the affected library need be
updated.

-Carl