Why can't elves cough?

[Mike Leibensperger]

In article <1991Mar13.095416.7172 at kithrup.COM> sef at kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
>While I know nothing about what SCO is going to do about ELF (really, truly,
>and honestly; I don't really care, either 8-)), I would like to point out
>that the two issues (ELF and the ABI) are mutually irrelevant.  That is, the
>ABI specifies a whole bunch of things, including the COFF file format.  As a
>result, if you want to conform to the ABI, you get to use COFF.

True, ELF != ABI.

The whole point of the ABI is to allow the development of shrink-wrapped
off-the-shelf Unix software.  There was a lot of brouhaha in the trade
press recently about SCO, Intel, et. al. agreeing to an ABI so they can
embark on a big applications push.

But the truly *alarming* thing is this:  If SVR4 development systems
have no COFF, and if Sean's assertion that SVR4 actually uses different
syscall numbers depending on linker format, then you can't use SVR4 to
develop ABI conforming programs!!!

What's the scam here, AT&T?  This is terribly inconvenient for
applications developers.  I have a bad feeling that some sleazoid
somewhere is going to rake in a lot of ill-gotten bucks thanks to this
inconvenience.

Can somebody out there fill us in on the politics of this whole
situation?  What is the fate of the ABI?  What linker format is Intel's
SVR4 going to use?  SCO's?  Interactive's?  etc. etc.

	Sigh....
	mjl
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