[nh2]

I often work on static linking with Nix.

Creating statically linked end user programs that aren't minimal CLI utilities is not trivial.

You need static linking working for all your dependencies (`.a` files) of all your recursive dependencies (hundreds of C libraries, and often up to hundreds of libraries in the higher-level language you may be using).

You need to either use a very configurable package distribution like nixpkgs, or a distribution that specialises in static Linking like Alpine Linux.

These toolchains now make static linking possible and much easier, and nixpkgs can build hundreds of C and Haskell programs statically. Go is also easy. When you can statically link, it is often better, but there are still many programs for which it doesn't work yet, and just "packing up all the .so files" as proposed in the announcement is certainly easier.

For people who want to contribute to static linking, consider contributing to nixpkgs/NixOS and Alpine Linux.