From owner-freebsd-arch  Fri Nov 10 20:49: 1 2000
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Date: Fri, 10 Nov 2000 20:48:58 -0800 (PST)
From: Matt Dillon <dillon@earth.backplane.com>
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To: arch@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject: Re: The shared /bin and /sbin bikeshed 
References:  <200011110315.eAB3Fp909237@mass.osd.bsdi.com>
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    This conversation is starting to wander.  Please, guys, I am
    certainly not advocating that we throw away shared libraries!
    I am fully aware of their advantages.  I am simply pointing
    out that memory utilization is not one of them.  

    The problem with that 92K of data space is that it contains
    data elements for the entire libc library, not just the
    pieces you use.  The result is that even if you only use a
    small part of libc, you will still wind up dirtying many of
    those pages due to the fact that the few elements you do
    use are spread all over that 92K of data space.

    Bruce made this clear in his posting, but obviously
    some people weren't listening.

    In a static binary only the data elements you reference
    are linked in, thus packing the data and bss space and
    reducing the memory footprint.

    For the vast majority of systems, including mine,
    shared libraries are preferable for many reasons,
    but there is an undeniable cost for that convenience.
    Certain binaries in my Diablo USENET newsfeed code
    were linked -static precisely because it cut a
    significant amount of overhead off of separately-exec'd
    instances.

					-Matt


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