OSLib and ELF

[David J. Ruck]

On 11 Apr 2007 Tony van der Hoff <tony at vanderhoff.org> wrote:

> On 10 Apr at 23:07 "David J. Ruck" <druck at druck.org.uk> wrote in message
> <ee8b8dd14e.druck at druck.freeuk.net>
> 
>> 
>> It is essential that a RISC OS box can build all the sources to critical
>> components, no matter how long the build time is. Any general purpose
>> computer platform that is incapable of tying its own shoelaces is not
>> worth using.
>> 
> Whilst I would agree that it is desirable to maintain native build
> capability, if the choice, dictated by developer availability, has to be
> between adding ELF support and maintaining native build capability, what
> should we choose?

There is no reason why it is an either or choice.

> There is an argument that says that ELF support can only be added in a cross
> development environment, so we might as well go the whole hog and abandon
> native development entirely.

I haven't seen any reasoning to support that argument, apart from the 
fact that the GCC developers can't be bothered to ensure they don't 
break native building.

> There is another argument that says that ELF is an alien environment, and we
> should ignore its existance, in favour of keeping native build capability.

I don't see why we can't subsume ELF in to the native evironment, once 
loader issues are resolved.

> I guess, personally, given the stark choice, I'd have to put my weight
> behind dropping native builds :(
> 
> Philosophical arguments aside, there is not a lot wrong in having to build
> code in a cross environment if that results in positive advantages. How many
> people, actually build OSLib natively?

As I said, its not a matter of how many, but that it remains possible. 
Not only is it a major philosophical issue, but also has contractual 
implications, once you cannot build all dependencies natively, to 
check point the build environment you have to also included the entire 
cross compiler platform. That is not viable given how little money 
there is in supporting the tail end of legacy systems.

Cheers
---Dave

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David J. Ruck   Phone: +44- (0)7974 108301   Email: druck at druck.org.uk
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