4.4.27: Static Linux builds, memory-aware batching, and build toolchain upgrades

This release includes significant improvements to resource management, build reliability, and portability.

### Memory-Aware Batching (Backward Compatible)
- Added configurable batch size and memory limits to prevent excessive memory usage during large dataset processing.
- Introduced a new `--batch-mem` command-line option (e.g., `128K`, `64M`, `1G`) to enable adaptive batching based on estimated sequence memory footprint.
- Internal batching logic now flushes batches when either size or memory thresholds are exceeded, ensuring predictable behavior.
- Conservative memory estimation and explicit garbage collection after large batch discards improve resource efficiency.

### Linux Build Enhancements
- Enabled static linking for Linux binaries using musl, producing self-contained executables with no external runtime dependencies.
- Refined cross-compilation toolchain to use architecture-specific CGO header paths, improving reliability across target architectures.
- Switched Linux builds to use Docker-based static compilation for consistency and reproducibility.

### Build System & Toolchain Improvements
- Upgraded Go toolchain to 1.26, with updated dependencies including golang.org/x/net v0.38.0.
- Fixed Makefile quoting for LDFLAGS to handle paths containing spaces.
- Enhanced build error handling to display logs before cleanup on failure.
- Improved install script with correct environment variable setup (GOROOT, GOPATH, GOTOOLCHAIN) and added progress indicators for downloads.

Note: All batching behavior remains non-breaking, with default constraints ensuring safe processing of large datasets.

.github/workflows/release.yml

@@ -79,7 +79,7 @@ jobs:
             -w /src \
             -e VERSION="${VERSION}" \
             golang:1.26-alpine \
-            sh -c "apk add --no-cache gcc musl-dev zlib-dev zlib-static make && \
+            sh -c "apk add --no-cache gcc musl-dev zlib-dev make && \
                    make LDFLAGS='-linkmode=external -extldflags=-static' obitools"
           mkdir -p artifacts
           tar -czf artifacts/obitools4_${VERSION}_${{ matrix.output_name }}.tar.gz -C build .

pkg/obioptions/version.go

@@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ package obioptions
 // Version is automatically updated by the Makefile from version.txt
 // The patch number (third digit) is incremented on each push to the repository
 
-var _Version = "Release 4.4.28"
+var _Version = "Release 4.4.27"
 
 // Version returns the version of the obitools package.
 //

version.txt

@@ -1 +1 @@
-4.4.28
+4.4.27