Question about static libraries and compression

[Daniela]

I have a problem with linking:
When I invoke make, I always give it the -DNOSTATIC option on the commandline 
to save space. However, this doesn't work. My system still builds static 
libraries. Or are the binaries linked dynamically, and the static libs are 
there for nothing? I guess it's safe to delete them, right?
Everything is self-compiled, I do not use binary packages at all.

Also, I read that the kernel can execute gzipped a.out binaries directly, can 
the same thing be done for ELF? I need a really small system, because I want 
to boot and run it from CD-ROM.

Regards,
Daniela