[illumos-Developer] ON is bloated and a bunch of stuff that doesn't need to be there should be ripped out (was Re: Heads up: perl 5.8.4 removal)

[Peter Tribble]

> Its not a formal list... I'd have to go looking.  One thing that I do
> think we can probably clean up is the support for legacy SunOS 4.1 a.out
> executables.  Its been a few decades now, and I think the need to
> support executing such programs has long since passed.

That's one place I disagree. I regard SunOS4.x binary compatibility as a
massive advantage - and I run a *lot* of stuff that way. Most of it simply
can't be rebuilt (no source, even if the company that made it was still in
existence) or replaced. Sun hardware and software has lifetimes
measured in decades; many companies rely on this (often unknowingly).

-- 
-Peter Tribble
http://www.petertribble.co.uk/ - http://ptribble.blogspot.com/