[vetrom]

Even in the dotnet era, you have WinSxS and exe/dll specific manifests pinning specific library artifacts with apps and a loader that keeps a repository of every version referred to on the system. The linux/ELF ecosystem on the otherhand decided to try to implement various degrees of semantic library versioning, with differing (often poor) degrees of success.

When your target is a system image thats rebuilt entirely from source you can get away with the latter somewhat more easily, but its definitely no panacea. Just look at OpenSSL. (libmemcache is another personal 'favorite' of mine.)