From: drew@caesar.cs.colorado.edu (Drew Eckhardt) Subject: Re: Application Binary Interface Date: Fri, 7 May 1993 07:55:09 GMT
In article <C6G82n.6o@oea.hobby.nl> dan@oea.hobby.nl (Dan Naas) writes:
>Hierophant (ozone@sanger.chem.nd.edu) wrote:
>: Having seen the recent announcement that a consortium of MIPS vendors have
>: agreed to standardize on an Application Binary Interface (ABI) which would
>: allow portability of binaries across various MIPS-based workstations, it
>: occurs to me that perhaps the "vendors" of the various "free" operating
>: systems (Linux, 386BSD/BSD386, Mach?) should pursue a similar initiative.
>: Initially this would involve standardization on the 386/486 platform; when
>: there is enough work done on the 680x0, an ABI could be created for it as
>: well. This would have the benefit of making binaries portable across the
>: various 386-based free operating systems while also presenting a unified
>: front to mainstream industry, which might turn out to be much more valuable
>: than the portability issue.
>
> Well, such a standard already exists! It is called iBCS2 (INTeL386
>Family Binary Compatibility Specification 2) and it "defines a system inter-
>face for compiled application programs. Its purpose is to establish a standard
>binary interface for application programs on systems that implement the
>interfaces defined in System V Interface Definition, Issue 2." I don't know
>if Linux developers are adhereing to this spec or not.
BCS is a deprecated standard based on kernel traps, used under Intel
ports of SYSVR2,3, etc. It has been replaced with the SYSV ABI
(Applications Binary Interface) which is based entirely on calls into
dynamically linked shared libraries.
> In a similar vain, I'm curious as to the choice of executable file
>format for Linux. Was it debated or was it sometthing that just happened?
>It seems that the COFF and its its derivatives are gaining wide acceptance
>these days, while the a.out format is becoming obsolete.
The GNU tools gas and gld have no problems working with a.out...
-- Boycott USL/Novell for their absurd anti-BSDI lawsuit. | Drew Eckhardt Condemn Colorado for Amendment Two. | drew@cs.Colorado.EDU Use Linux, the fast, flexible, and free 386 unix |