thanks very much for pinpointing this down to the specific cause.
that should help a lot in getting it fixed.

>>After much tracing through the code, I found out why the Apache DSO
>>support doesn't work on NetBSD/pmax.
>> ...
>>I've written a simple test program which shows the same behavior.  All it
>>does is dlopen() a library, dlclose() it, and tries to dlopen() it again.  It
>>locks up on the second dlopen(). Is this a known behavior, or should I send a
>>pr on it?

>It sounds interesting.  Check PR database and if not found, submit
>yours with, probably, "port-mips" tag.  I also recommend you send your
>test program to tsubai@netbsd.org requesting to check whether he can
>reproduce what you've found. (Mr. Tsubai is the NetBSD/newsmips
>portmaster)

And please send a PR with the test program regardless,

    i) so we can drop it into "regress" or at least have it around
       when other ports move to ELF

    ii) see if it works on alpha.