On Thu, Mar 29, 2018 at 5:37 PM, Paul Winalski <paul.winalski@gmail.com> wrote:

Also, when was symbol preemption invented? Traditional shared library
designs such as in IBM System/370, VMS, and Windows NT doesn't have
it. As one who worked on optimizations in compilers, I came to hate
symbol preemption because it prohibits many useful optimizations. ELF
does provide a way to turn it off, but it's on by default--you have to
explicitly declare symbols as protected or hidden via source language
pragmas to get rid of it.

Unless it came from a place like Sun or Sun where Larry or Charlie might remember, I suspect that Steve Johnson is probably best to answer this part of your question -- assuming that it was created during his time in the compiler team in Summit.

But, I don't remember when it came on to the scene frankly because it did not effect me. I think it might have been in the original COFF which came from those days, but its possible its from one of the many bastardization of COFF that occurred after its birth. I don't remember it being in any of the a.out flavors and I don't think macho has it.

As an OS guy, all I remember about it frankly is you and some the compiler folks b*tching about it as a misfeature of UNIX at lunch ;-)