Is it a GNU Tools failure that PIE use ET_DYN and can't be distinguished from libraries?

[Roland McGrath]

> Is it a failing of the tooling that we didn't provide a way for
> tools to determine PIE vs. DSO?

It might be if we hadn't.  But we defined a PIE as an ET_DYN with a
DT_DEBUG.  (We didn't account for a case that would be useful and the
linker doesn't currently fully support: a static PIE, which is an ET_DYN
that has no PT_INTERP and might not have a PT_DYNAMIC either.)

> Was it always the goal to be able to dlopen a PIE? e.g. Implement
> both the daemon as a standalone executable and as a DSO you could
> load and run as a service?

That was indeed a goal at the inception of PIE.