The following code chunk demonstrates the problem. This code will not
link under 2.96.69 of gcc. It works fine under 2.95 (linux 6.1)

class fred
{
public:
   fred(){};
   virtual ~fred() {};
   void func() { static fred tmp; };
};

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
   fred f;
   return 0;
}

It seems to be the combination of a virtual destructor and the static data
in func which causes it.