backward/forward compatibility of binutils

[Jan-Benedict Glaw]

On Fri, 2006-07-07 02:50:16 -0400, Mikhail Teterin <mi+kde@aldan.algebra.com> wrote:
> Currently each of these tools builds its own version of binutils and links 
> with it -- *statically*. The binutils library(ies) (-lbfd) don't even get 
> installed into /usr .
> 
> The reasons for this are historical -- each tool (still!) comes with its own 
> version of binutils, which some time ago used to be incompatible with each 
> other :-(

Especially for the libbfd, the reason is probably that it was agreed
to not keep a specific binary interface, thus, there's not much sense
in keeping an eye on what patches are bugfixes-only and those that
alter the binary interface, which require to increase the library's
version number.

On the other hand, those patches didn't happen that often, so one
probably _could_ do that.

MfG, JBG

-- 
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