Transcode does not link statically if USE=static. Reproducible: Always Steps to Reproduce: 1. set USE+=static 2. emerge transcode 3. ldd /usr/bin/transcode Actual Results: libm.so.6 => /lib/libm.so.6 (0x4002c000) libpthread.so.0 => /lib/libpthread.so.0 (0x4004f000) libdl.so.2 => /lib/libdl.so.2 (0x400a0000) libc.so.6 => /lib/libc.so.6 (0x400a3000) /lib/ld-linux.so.2 => /lib/ld-linux.so.2 (0x40000000) Expected Results: not a dynamic executable Portage 2.0.50-r1 (default-x86-1.4, gcc-3.3.2, glibc-2.3.2-r9, 2.4.20) ================================================================= System uname: 2.4.20 i686 Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.40GHz Gentoo Base System version 1.4.3.13 Autoconf: sys-devel/autoconf-2.58 Automake: sys-devel/automake-1.7.7 ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" AUTOCLEAN="yes" CFLAGS="-Os -pipe" CHOST="i686-pc-linux-gnu" COMPILER="gcc3" CONFIG_PROTECT="/etc /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xkb /usr/kde/2/share/config /usr/kde/3.1/share/config /usr/kde/3/share/config /usr/share/config /usr/share/texmf/tex/generic/config/ /usr/share/texmf/tex/platex/config/ /var/qmail/control" CONFIG_PROTECT_MASK="/etc/gconf /etc/env.d" CXXFLAGS="-Os -pipe" DISTDIR="/usr/portage/distfiles" FEATURES="autoaddcvs buildpkg ccache sandbox" GENTOO_MIRRORS="rsync://ftp.belnet.be/gentoo/ ftp://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/ http://ftp.belnet.be/mirror/rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo/ ftp://gentoo.linux.no/pub/gentoo/ http://gentoo.linux.no/" MAKEOPTS="-j1" PKGDIR="/usr/portage/packages" PORTAGE_TMPDIR="/var/tmp" PORTDIR="/usr/portage" PORTDIR_OVERLAY="/usr/local/portage" SYNC="rsync://rsync.gentoo.org/gentoo-portage" USE="X acpi apm arts avi berkdb bonobo cdr crypt cups curl debug dga directfb doc dvb dvd emacs encode esd ethereal evo flash foomaticdb gb gd gdbm gif gnome gphoto2 gpm gtk gtk2 gtkhtml guile imap imlib innodb java jpeg kde lcms ldap libg++ libgda libwww lids lirc mad mbox mikmod motif mozilla mozsvg mpeg mysql nas ncurses nls oav oggvorbis opengl oss pam pda pdflib perl png postgres python qt quicktime readline samba sasl scanner sdl slang snmp spell sse ssl static svga tcltk tcpd tetex tiff truetype wmf x86 xinerama xml2 xmms xv zlib"
Those are glibc libs it's linking to. Can't get rid of those. A non static transcode produces links to libxml/libz on top of what you see.