&gt; if we have to recompile and redistribute all the dependent packages for every OpenSSL upgrade anyway?<p>Because we don&#x27;t – look at how many updates Debian, Red Hat, etc. have shipped for OpenSSL vs. the number of times you&#x27;ve had to recompile dependent packages.<p>OpenSSL is also something an outlier because it&#x27;s both critically exposed for security and has a somewhat unusual development model, so it&#x27;s also important to remember that even if it _was_ true that we have to rebuild OpenSSL callers regularly, that&#x27;s manifestly not true of the hundreds of other libraries where dynamic linking saves time and memory.