Compiling support on a database that's not installed on the same server

Hi, I'm trying to compile PHP with oracle support but Oracle is only installed on a different server and I don't have a license to install it on more than 1 server. I initially thought that only static compilation is used when linking to the Oracle libraries hence tried a workaround by mounting the directory that Oracle was installed on the DB server via samba. It compiled alright, but I can't seem to run the httpd daemon when I unmount the directory. Does this mean that whatever databases PHP is compiled to support must necessarily be installed on the same machine? Somebody please help... Thanks Wong