[belorn]

> So why does the LGPL/Linking Exception exist at all?

Because RMS wanted a long time ago to have a bright line in the sand that differentiated between a single derivative work and two works that simply communicate with each other. As the story goes he initially thought that linking was two works communicating with each other, but after consulting with a lawyer, the lawyer presented the following scenario. A person goes in front of a judge and say: this piece of software which can not start without my work, (if statically linked) can't be compiled, can't do anything useful by itself, is not an independent work. What will the judge say?

RMS then agreed with that scenario and decided that this served as a good line for enforcing the GPL, and for projects like the standard library and similar tools an exception was needed.