We have been working on pdlibbuilder and I've proposed static linking pthread by default.
https://github.com/pure-data/pd-lib-builder/issues/42
https://github.com/pure-data/pd-lib-builder/issues/36
My motivation on doing such thing is to prevent people from forgetting to ship libwinpthread-1.dll when needed.
There are many chances for this to happen as when we test an compiled [external] it will be working with Pd's libwinpthread-1.dll so we might think that everything is OK. Also people from linux & osx are not really aware that on Windows/MinGW pthread is an specific file.
This in turn will let the [external] survive when Pd, in some future, will start using a future MinGW pthread implementation.
We discussed this but IOhannes & Dan see static linking as something horrible. I see that there's no difference in shipping the file or statically include it in the [external]. I also tested that [externals] that don't use pthread are immune to the -static flag.
Is there something I'm missing? Why not putting a "lifebuoy" by default ?
If a dev does not want -static he/she can override it.
Some thoughts? community ?
I ask this because I care about Windows Pd and [externals].