>      I thought NetBSD was about doing the "right" thing first, and
> following specs second.  I realise that certain specs are needed for
> interoperability such as POSIX and TCP/IP, however ELF doesn't fall in
> that category.  I do realise that using something like ELF gives the
> ability to use precanned tools such as GCC, GDB, Binutils, etc. instead
> of having to roll our own, as well as making it easier to handle
> binaries from other OSes.  However, is there any reason that we need to
> adhere to this particular aspect of the ELF spec?  So far, the only
> objection I have seen is the problem with conflicts between dynamic
> symbols and static symbols.  Is this really a showstopper?  Is there
> any other technical reason (following specs is a political reason) that

In the general case "following specs" is not (just) politics.
Interoperability comes to mind.  (No comment on the ELF or the
dynamic vs static issues, though.)

-- 
$jhi++; # http://www.iki.fi/jhi/
        # There is this special biologist word we use for 'stable'.
        # It is 'dead'. -- Jack Cohen