just a note: i haven't really publically explained the very sad failure of the weak linkage stuff.

we incorrectly assumed that the linux gcc+ld stack had the same capabilities as their variants on OS X. OS X provides a *very nice* design for weak linkage that is incredibly useful for precisely this sort of thing.

alas, it turned out that the work done on the apple variants was never back-ported into mainstream gcc+ld, and as a result, the weak linkage test approach that i (and a few others advocated) does not work on linux unless code is specially linked in a way that is not sensible to recommend for applications. basically, you can do weak linkage tests *between libraries* (or other code linked with -fPIC, but not between libraries and applications.

this is very sad, and the alternative (an approach first implemented by native instruments, of all groups!) seems like the only way to handle this.

--p