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In-Reply-To: <3FBC50DB.3000002@acm.org> from Tim Kientzle at "Nov 19, 2003
	09:27:55 pm"
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Subject: Re: Unfortunate dynamic linking for everything
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Tim Kientzle said:
> 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.
> 
It isn't necessary for the shell to be dynamically linked
(efficiency issue WRT the sparse allocations and greater
COW overheads/etc) for the shell to programmatically link in
a module for optional feature sets.  This can even be
placed under a libc call (which then wouldn't encumber
the shell unless the feature was active and increase the
footprint of generally all libc routines.)

John