Re: BUG elf32-i386 R_386_PC32 done wrong

[doctor electron]

Long, long ago, Ian Lance Taylor, a life form in far off space,
emitted:

>We would discard the ABI in a second if the benefit exceeds the cost.

We agree; I'm happy.

>What benefit would we gain by changing the definition of R_386_PC32?

As stated, I don't know; the case was discussed as an example of
a larger concept which (above) we agree on.

>You have not described any benefit beyond abstract appeals to what you
>think object files should look like.  That doesn't count.  Give us a
>measurable benefit and we'll consider it.

I did: the vast amount of .obj files containing useful
procedures would become "interoperable".  In terms of available
software, one might estimate 10x more .obj files than .o files
worldwide.

Concreteness?  When ld links ELF files, it produces a compact
executable (very nice); when ld links COFF files, (a) it
apparently cannot output a "very nice" compact ELF file, but
rather the longer zero-padded PE format (for PE section
alignment) which requires objcopy to convert to ELF with the
result still having all the zero-padding.

I'm good, at peace, Ian.  Nothing to worry about.  If my shop
makes an ld that can bring all this .obj software into a Linux
environment with the very nice compact ELF format (which, as you
agree, ld cannot do now), I'm happy.  Thank you again. 

Cheers, Jim