> I think the main reason they don't offer a `--make-my-binary-compatible-with-the-ancient-linux-versions-users-often-have` is that GCC/glibc is a GNU project and the are philosophically against distributing software as binaries.

You don't have to statically compile glibc, gcc just needs an option to tell the compiler to target say, version 2.14 instead of the latest one.

The newest glibc has all the older versions in it. That's why you can compile on say ubuntu 14 and have it run on ubuntu 24.