Subject: Re: problems linking formats.
From: Stan Shebs <[email-masked]>

25 Mar 1997 12:16:47 -0800
Distribution: cygnus
Message-ID: <[email-masked]>
References: <[email-masked]>
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[email-masked] (Tim Iverson) writes:

> IMHO, if Cygnus wants a drop-in replacement for a production toolset, they
> will need to support OMF at some point.  However, given that GNU doesn't
> support it, using a bastard COFF during beta does provide a workable
> solution until OMF support is ready.

That's a tough call.  It's been discussed, but there is no final
decision.  It's hard to see the business reason for doing OMF; the
marketplace that needs OMF already has plenty of compilers, and those
compilers are losing money for the companies.  If someone says to me
"we'll give you a $200K/year support contract once you have OMF support"
(and they show me the money! :-) ), I'll be much more motivated; but
that hasn't happened yet.

> I do wish it was better documented, though.  I looked all over the README's
> and FAQs and saw nary a reference to executable or object format; "pe-i386"
> does somewhat imply "Microsoft Portable Executable" format, often referred
> to as "PE", but it would be nice if it was explicitly stated.

Usually only the hardcore care about these kinds of details, and they can
find that in the sources.  Most programmers want it to "just work".
Still, it seems reasonable to add at least a note about PE to the
user-visible documents.

							Stan Shebs
							Cygnus Solutions
							[email-masked]