Dynamic libmap.so

[Howard Butler]

All,

After some futzing, I was able to build a dynamic libmap on OS X 
using the "make shared" target in the Makefie.  I was wondering if 
there were historical reasons why we don't always build a dynamic 
libmap.so, and why we normally do static linking for programs like 
mapserv and shp2img.  Static building happens in MapScript as well, 
and this complicates the MapScript build process, forcing us to use 
the "mapscriptvars" hack for TCL, Perl, Python, and Ruby to pick up 
libs, definitions, and header files.

Some questions about the MapServer build process:
- If MapServer is to have a C API, is it expected that this would be 
built and linked to applications dynamically?
- Will a dynamic libmap build simplify our MapScript build process? 
MapServer build process?
- Are there performance/memory footprint gains to be had from a 
dynamic libmap.so?

Howard