From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from oss.sgi.com (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by oss.sgi.com (8.12.5/8.12.5) with ESMTP id g6QGqARw032068 for ; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:52:10 -0700 Received: (from majordomo@localhost) by oss.sgi.com (8.12.5/8.12.3/Submit) id g6QGq98b032067 for linux-mips-outgoing; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:52:09 -0700 X-Authentication-Warning: oss.sgi.com: majordomo set sender to owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com using -f Received: from mms3.broadcom.com (mms3.broadcom.com [63.70.210.38]) by oss.sgi.com (8.12.5/8.12.5) with SMTP id g6QGpxRw032056 for ; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:51:59 -0700 Received: from 63.70.210.1 by mms3.broadcom.com with ESMTP (Broadcom MMS-3 SMTP Relay (MMS v4.7)); Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:53:02 -0700 X-Server-Uuid: 1e1caf3a-b686-11d4-a6a3-00508bfc9ae5 Received: from mail-sj1-5.sj.broadcom.com (mail-sj1-5.sj.broadcom.com [10.16.128.236]) by mon-irva-11.broadcom.com (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id JAA05354; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:53:03 -0700 (PDT) Received: from dt-sj3-118.sj.broadcom.com (dt-sj3-118 [10.21.64.118]) by mail-sj1-5.sj.broadcom.com (8.12.4/8.12.4/SSF) with ESMTP id g6QGr2ER020436; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:53:02 -0700 (PDT) Received: (from cgd@localhost) by dt-sj3-118.sj.broadcom.com ( 8.9.1/SJ8.9.1) id JAA14534; Fri, 26 Jul 2002 09:53:00 -0700 (PDT) To: hjl@lucon.org cc: "Carsten Langgaard" , "Maciej W. Rozycki" , linux-mips@fnet.fr, linux-mips@oss.sgi.com, binutils@sources.redhat.com Subject: Re: PATCH: Update E_MIP_ARCH_XXX (Re: [patch] linux: RFC: elf_check_arch() rework) References: <3D3FFD21.8DA26337@mips.com> <20020725082610.A21614@lucon.org> From: cgd@broadcom.com Date: 26 Jul 2002 09:53:00 -0700 In-Reply-To: hjl@lucon.org's message of "Thu, 25 Jul 2002 15:26:19 +0000 (UTC)" Message-ID: X-Mailer: Gnus v5.7/Emacs 20.4 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-WSS-ID: 115FA1E4581143-01-01 Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-3.7 required=5.0 tests=IN_REP_TO,NO_REAL_NAME,PORN_10 version=2.20 X-Spam-Level: Sender: owner-linux-mips@oss.sgi.com Precedence: bulk At Thu, 25 Jul 2002 15:26:19 +0000 (UTC), "H. J. Lu" wrote: > I'd like to fix binutils ASAP. Here is a patch. OK, so, I've seen no response so far that indicates that binutils should actually be changed. to recap: * Binutils has deployed these values in several releases now, and I know for a fact that people are using binaries with these values. * SGI has followed binutils' lead in selecting values. * Algorithmics did something else, though it's not clear what the difference between "ARCH_ALGOR_32" and "ARCH_32" really is. It seems obvious that the simplest solution that causes the least pain all around is to go with the numbering binutils currently uses. This will probably cause a little bit of pain for Algorithmics, but, well, they could have sent something to binutils to indicate use of that number, and i'm quite sure that most of the rest of us have had to put temporary backward-compat hacks in our own codebases for incompatible changes made by others in the past. It's not that hard and doesn't cause long-term pain. I could understand that MIPS or Algorithmics might like that, but I think there're a bunch of morals to this story: if you want to lead on ABI issues, get out in front of them (you can't lead from the back 8-); interact with the tool development and use communities about such issues _before_ solutions are needed and agreed upon in those communities; and, you're hacking open source code like binutils, contribute your changes back as soon as you possibly can. I'd also like to point out that saying "mips will be defining this ABI, so you should all change your code to work with it" without, AFAIK, even providing a draft of said ABI... is unlikely to produce positive results even _if_ there's no precedent that would go against the requested change. (if somebody has a ptr, i'd be glad to be corrected 8-) (I wonder what other incompatibilities may exist between this new ABI and the current binutils MIPS ELF headers...) cgd -- Chris Demetriou Broadcom Corporation Senior Staff Design Engineer Broadband Processor Business Unit Any opinions expressed in this message are mine, not necessarily Broadcom's.