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Re: EI_ABIVERSION usage


On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 03:30:56PM -0700, David O'Brien wrote:

 > On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 11:24:53AM -0700, Geoff Keating wrote:
 > > > Date: Tue, 7 May 2002 10:54:19 -0700
 > > > From: "David O'Brien" <obrien@FreeBSD.org>
 > > 
 > > > But then why are conforming applications required to use a 0 value?
 > > 
 > > Because conforming applications use the SVR4 ABI,
 > 
 > There is not a single OS out there on sale that is compliant with the
 > SVR4 ABI.  Unixware 1.1 was the last one that was compliant.

Geez, how many times do we have to hash over this?

Not too long ago, Richard Earnshaw and I were scolded *on this list*
for wanting to set the OSABI field to ELFOSABI_NETBSD for arm-*-netbsdelf*
because that target uses a variant of the not-yet-finalized ARM eABI, and
is thus not compatible with the current draft of eABI, nor is it compatible
with the ABI that Linux uses.  (ABI in this case refers to the way enums
are handled, the way floating point values are represented, stack alignment
rules, etc.)

The current GNU tools set OSABI to ELFOSABI_ARM because the relocations are
different than the original (done without a published ABI) ARM ELF target
in the GNU tools.

The argument was made to us that the OSABI field is not to indicate the
ABI in the "calling convention" sense, etc. but rather indicates the meanings
of the various other fields in the ELF program, section, etc. headers, the
relocation types, etc..  The difference between hppa-elf-hpux and
hppa-elf-linux was pointed out as a correct use of OSABI (since they fall
into this category).

Given that, it seems completely wrong for FreeBSD to be setting the OSABI
field to ELFOSABI_FREEBSD, unless the relocations, header fields, etc.
are incompatible with the stock System V ABI.

Can we please come up with a clear policy on this issue and document
it somewhere obvious so that we don't have to waste our time discussing
it again in the future?

-- 
        -- Jason R. Thorpe <thorpej@wasabisystems.com>


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