Re: [Patch] was: MIPS assembler no longer "combines symbols indifferent segments"...

["Maciej W. Rozycki" <macro at linux-mips dot org>]

On Mon, 28 Feb 2005, David Daney wrote:

> > 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

 It's a bug in GCC 3.3.  It has been fixed.  If you require 
bug-compatibility, you may maintain it yourself either by fixing GCC 3.3 
or by using your workaround.

 We don't expand the ABI every time a bug in a tool makes it go beyond 
what's already defined.

> 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.

 In a perfect world GCC 3.3 wouldn't have had this bug.  Is backporting 
the fix from GCC 3.4 impossible?

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

 Forcing the right bug fix instead of attempted workarounds?

  Maciej