Please answer these questions before submitting your issue. Thanks!

1. What version of Go are you using (go version)?
   go version devel +748aa84 Wed Aug 10 20:33:11 2016 +0000 linux/ppc64le
2. What operating system and processor architecture are you using (go env)?
   ppc64le Ubuntu 16.04
3. What did you do?
   If possible, provide a recipe for reproducing the error.
   A complete runnable program is good.
   A link on play.golang.org is best.
   Simple testcase:
   test-setX.go:
   package main

import (
"fmt"
)

var VERSION string

func main() {
fmt.Printf("Hello, World! Version is: %s\n", VERSION)
}
Make sure there is a shared std libary
go install -buildmode=shared std
go build -linkshared -ldflags '-X main.VERSION=123' test-setX.go

1. What did you expect to see?
   Successful build and execution. Output without -linkshared is:
   ./test-setX
   Hello, World! Version is: 123
2. What did you see instead?
   Program didn't build, error message was:
   cannot use -X with non-string symbol main.VERSION type.TwVfYA92
   (I modified src/cmd/link/internal/ld/data.go to print out the actual type at the end of the message. That does not appear by default.)
   I also just tried removing the test in data.go where this error message occurs, and then the program built successfully but panicked at runtime.