Re: [RFC] New object format for grub2

[Marco Gerards <mgerards@xs4all.nl>]

Hi,

Bean <bean123ch@gmail.com> writes:

> Why another format ? Here are some reason:
>
> The current object format is ELF. Most unix based os use ELF as native
> object format, but there are minor difference, and gcc may add extra
> segment which is of no use for grub. Mingw/cygwin uses PE, and we need
> to convert it to ELF. Platform like OSX also requires special
> treatment. All these make the build system complicated, so we might
> just use an unified format specific to grub.
>
> The ELF format is designed to be compatible with many system, it's
> neither compact nor easy to parse. If we invent a new format, we
> should make it simple.

There is another problem with this: the maintainance burden.  People
know ELF, we have ELF and people will know ELF in the future.
Furthermore, as far as I am concerned, GNU/Linux is our main
platform.  I do not mind supporting windows or so and we can support
it in a sane way, but changing our binary formats for it is one step
too far for me...

--
Marco