>Er, how do you propose to remedy it? Write new boot roms for Suns and
>the others? I don't think that's practical.

New boot proms? No that's not practical.  But maybe an intermidiary a.out boot
loader that loads an ELF kernel is.  Also, it is possible to embed an a.out stub
program in an ELF exe.

>Even if it were decided that switcing to ELF on all platforms was a good idea,
>a.out support would HAVE to stay in the toolchain. 

Only the ability to load and execute a.out stuff would have to remain. 
Everything else could exit stage left.

>There is much disagreement as to wether ELF is "forward". Clearly it's
>needed on some platforms, and it would be good for them to switch. I
>think it'd be a bad idea to force everybody to switch. And what happens
>when some other format comes along, and some new platform needs it's
>support. Change everything over again? Multiple format support is just
>something that will have to be lived with.

ELF is here to stay.  Many platforms are moving in this direction.  ELF is
extremely adaptable and should continue to work with every known, or yet to be
invented turing machine(big-endian, little-endian, 16, 32, 64, 128 bit... 
just doesn't matter - At least thats what I've been told).  Although loading
the kernel's another story;-). I suspect ELF will become the default UN*X OMF
over several years and have a prolonged lifespan. -- 'nough with the marketing
hype.

Multiple format support is a tough nut to crack.  I'm not saying it can't be
done, only difficult.  It will be blatant hackery and completly
non-standard though.

erik