From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue May 6 15:40:42 1997 Return-Path: Received: (from root@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA10289 for hackers-outgoing; Tue, 6 May 1997 15:40:42 -0700 (PDT) Received: from lestat.nas.nasa.gov (lestat.nas.nasa.gov [129.99.50.29]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id PAA10283 for ; Tue, 6 May 1997 15:40:40 -0700 (PDT) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lestat.nas.nasa.gov (8.7.5/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA22144; Tue, 6 May 1997 15:28:14 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199705062228.PAA22144@lestat.nas.nasa.gov> X-Authentication-Warning: lestat.nas.nasa.gov: Host localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Tom Samplonius Cc: Ben Black , hackers@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Alpha questions.. Reply-To: Jason Thorpe From: Jason Thorpe Date: Tue, 06 May 1997 15:28:13 -0700 Sender: owner-hackers@freebsd.org X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk On Tue, 6 May 1997 15:16:01 -0700 (PDT) Tom Samplonius wrote: > > this actually reminds me of something i have been wondering about: is > > there any desire to switch from a.out to another binary format like OLF > > that is better suited to multi-architecture use. ...guess I missed this before... Given that the binutils people are against OLF, I don't see it going anywhere. There are several problems with it. The things it attempts to solve can be solved other ways within the constraints of ELF without the problems OLF has. The FSF folks have chosen this route, and binutils 2.8 shipped with the support necessary to identify the OS a particular executable or object is for. NetBSD/alpha currently supports this facility, although NetBSD's ELF exec code doesn't yet check the OS tag. Jason R. Thorpe thorpej@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center Home: 408.866.1912 NAS: M/S 258-6 Work: 415.604.0935 Moffett Field, CA 94035 Pager: 415.428.6939