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Date: Wed, 19 Nov 2003 21:27:55 -0800
From: Tim Kientzle <kientzle@acm.org>
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Subject: Re: Unfortunate dynamic linking for everything
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Richard Coleman wrote:
> It seems /bin/sh is the real sticking point. 

There is a problem here: Unix systems have historically used
/bin/sh for two somewhat contradictory purposes:
   * the system script interpreter
   * as a user shell

The user shell must be dynamically linked in order
to support centralized administration.  I personally
see no way around that.  Given that many users do
rely on /bin/sh, it seems that /bin/sh must be
dynamically linked.

There are good reasons to want the system script
interpreter statically linked.

Maybe it's time to separate these two functions?
I would be content to have a static /sbin/sh
that is used as the system script interpreter for
rc scripts, etc.

Tim Kientzle