Removing "static" breaks GCC on Linux (gcc 4.9.2 on Ubuntu 15.04 x86-64):

./Modules/_sre.c:2780:20: error: static declaration of ‘pattern_methods’ follows non-static declaration
 static PyMethodDef pattern_methods[] = {
                    ^
./Modules/_sre.c:1429:13: note: previous declaration of ‘pattern_methods’ was here
 PyMethodDef pattern_methods[];
             ^

IMO MSVS is the one being unreasonable here.  But obviously we need to find some way of doing this that makes both compilers happy.