> 	The question is:  If an executable is linked statically, if multiple
> instances are running, are there multiple instances of the text segment for
> that executable in  memory at once?  In other words, is the OS smart enough
> to know that multiple instances of a given executable can share their text
> segments even if those text segments don't rely on  shared objects?

Text of a single executable is shared by multiple instances of that
executable running at the same time, yes.


The big advantage of shared libraries is that, without shared
libraries, text of two _different_ executables can't be shared at all,
when both are running.  Shared libraries allow some of that text --
the text contained in the shared libraries -- to be shared.


cgd