On many environments, some libraries cannot be built statically for good reasons (e. g. because it can load modules, which can use any symbol from the library).

If the upper level library can be built as static, it's impossible to create any pkg-config file, which will work correctly.

Example:
gtk+ is not build statically (statically linked binaries may fail on loading themes, input methods or so)
libgnome is built statically

To be able to build as-much-as-possible-static binary, you need (on Linux):

$(Libs from libgnome) $(Libs.private from libgnome)

Part of $(Libs from libgnome) has to expand to -Wl,-Bdynamic $(Libs from gtk+-2.0) -Wl,-Bstatic

But currently there is no way to specify any Ldflags inside .pc file and any items in Libs are sorted.


Proposed fix (backward compatible):

Implement "Libs.sharedonly:"

Proposed behavior for --static:

Collect all libs from "Libs:" and "Libs.private:".
Then collect all libs from "Libs.sharedonly:" and remove them from collected libs.

Then create command line:
all_libs_without_sharedonly -Wl,-Bdynamic all_sharedonly_libs -Wl,-Bstatic


Proposed fix (backward incompatible):

Support ${sharedonly} ${endsharedonly} variables in "Libs:".

Collect anything inside sharedonly into the separate list.