Date: Wed, 7 Dec 94 22:08 MST
From: mat AT ardi DOT com (Mat Hostetter)
To: Charles Sandmann <sandmann AT new-orleans DOT NeoSoft DOT com>
Cc: elf AT netcom DOT com (Marc Singer), djgpp AT sun DOT soe DOT clarkson DOT edu
Subject: Re: object file format change?
References: <199412070300 DOT TAA16379 AT netcom14 DOT netcom DOT com>
	<199412071426 DOT IAA03178 AT new-orleans DOT NeoSoft DOT com>

>>>>> "sandmann" == Charles Sandmann <sandmann AT new-orleans DOT NeoSoft DOT com> writes:

    >> Morten has some good evidence on his side for not changing the
    >> format.  Why should we want ELF?  Does it allow us to share
    >> binaries with Linux, for example?

    sandmann> I will toss in a couple of more concerns while we are
    sandmann> debating...
    sandmann> 1) Conversion will delay V2 (how much is unknown).
    sandmann> 2) Post V2 I was planning to look at tools to
    sandmann>    build Win 32 programs (for Windows 95 or Win3.1 with the
    sandmann>    Win32s DLL) but this would require COFF.  Look at
    sandmann>    doesn't mean it would ever happen :-)

First, some background: at ARDI we build the DOS version of our
product (Executor) under linux, using cross-compilation tools and the
djgpp libraries and headers.  This was easy to set up and works
extremely well.

Charles's second point is a good one.  The ability to use V2 to build
Windows apps would be _enormously_ useful to us, and I suspect to many
other people as well.  This would fundamentally improve the power of
djgpp, and switching to ELF would not.

Several people have pointed out that using ELF under both linux and
djgpp would allow them to use the same compilation tools (and no, the
same executables won't work on both).  To some extent you _could_ use
the same tools, but remember that linux gcc will use the wrong headers
and libraries by default, and gcc's built-in defines (e.g. -Dlinux
-Dunix) are wrong.  If you're running linux, building a cross-compiler
is so easy that sharing tools isn't that big of a deal.  It would
admittedly save some disk space, though.

Is it possible to support both ELF and COFF executables, and force
users to recompile the djgpp libs and tools if they want to use
whichever is not the default?

-Mat