Re: [Patch] was: MIPS assembler no longer "combines symbols in differentsegments"...

[David Daney <ddaney at avtrex dot com>]

Maciej W. Rozycki wrote:
> On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, Dave Korn wrote:
>
>
> >  I agree with this:  it's an ABI-breaking change to suddenly remove support
> > for a reloc type.  It may be desirable for more modern versions of the
>
>
>  It's not a breaking change -- the relocation has never been a part of the
> Linux ABI.  It has simply been abused.  If you use an undocumented
> feature, you shouldn't be surprised if that feature disappears one day,
> sorry.

What do you consider a "breaking change"?  I don't care if it is part of 
some official ABI document.  It is part of a de facto ABI that is used 
by GCC-3.3.x

By removing this relocation, you cannot use binutils 2.16 with 
GCC-3.3.x.  In a perfect world, Binutils 2.15 would have had a 
non-broken linker and we would keep using it.  But we don't live in a 
perfect world.

I don't see what is gained in making binutils 2.16 unsuable with GCC-3.3.x.

David Daney.