That sounds like yet another GNU project is getting out-of-hand (libraries! we don't need no stinkin' libraries!).
Something you might want to try? Brian Kernighan's (yes,
that Brian Kernighan, the "K" in AWK) has a link where you can download the source for AWK ("new" AWK or
nawk); I've been installing
nawk on every machine I own for years and it don't need no stinkin' libraries.
Take a look, see what you think:
http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~bwk/ -- it's the real thing.
Hope this helps some.
