Re: traditional Intel & Microsoft formats...

[Erich Stefan Boleyn <erich@uruk.org>]

artk@congruent.com (Arthur Kreitman) writes:

>    You should be aware that the "microsoft" formats are being dropped
> by microsoft.  All future microsoft 32 bit systems are sort of 
> coff based.

Yes, the PE format (that used by MS-Windows NT) is much like
COFF, particularly with an extra set of identifier fields.

The suggestion about the other formats is for the point of view of
binary emulation and linking with other libraries.

>    As far as gas is concerned, only minor changes are required to 
> support microsoft's coff interperation (we've done it, and will
> be integrating the changes into the latest gas release, and contributing
> back the changes to the fsf).  

Cool!

>   ar only makes sense if you have ld.  For ld to work with Windows NT
> and Windows95 require more changes then you can imagine.  Its at
> least several man years of work.  There's the further problem that
> much of it must be done by reverse engineering microsoft executables.

Really?  The Developer docs that come with the Microsoft "developer's
network" aren't too helpful, but there are a couple of articles
about them that have given me explicit layout rules.

Is this an estimate for targeting, or hosting?

I'd be interested in discussing some of it, though I am certainly
less expert than others on this list, just interested ;-).

>    If gnu cared about market impact, Windows95 support would take the
> highest priority.  I don't think that the gnu community realizes the 
> potential (and the impact) of every pc being a workstation class device
> with a sophisticated, multitasking, multithreaded operating system. 
> Remember, the windows install base is 70,000,000.

I think some (like myself) are aware and interested in this impact.

Particularly the ability of a GNU OS to run more executables than
the Microsoft OS's (say, almost a superset), would give a lot
more weight to the free software community.

Also, with MS-Windows NT & Chicago, there isn't going to be binary
emulation of 32-bit apps, only 16-bit i386 apps, so far.  This
project would be much more aimed at running any app on any
hardware architecture (in theory ;-).

In short, there is probably 3 or 4 big-ticket projects that together
could put the free (GNU, I presume ;-) OS's ahead of the commercial ones,
IMHO.

Anyway, this topic should be taken off-line, it's not the point
of the e-mail lists involved.

Erich
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