
Executable and Linkable Format (ELF) [pdf] - vmorgulis
http://www.skyfree.org/linux/references/ELF_Format.pdf
======
bediger4000
This is cool and stuff, but the real question is "what value does a super
complicated format like ELF add?" I guess the same question could be posed
about Mach-O or PE (a.k.a. COFF) executable file format.

Seriously, ELF (and Mach-O) have all kinds of capabilities (Mach-O can
specifiy starting multiple threads, rather than just giving an entry point)
that compiler systems and programming languages will just never use. Why
bother with such complexity? Note that I don't want to argue that we should
have just stuck with a.out format, but rather that the formats mandated by
custom and standard are just really complex, and have a lot of features that
are never used, and just might cause real security problems
([http://cs.dartmouth.edu/~bx/elf-bf-tools/slides/elf-
defcon20...](http://cs.dartmouth.edu/~bx/elf-bf-tools/slides/elf-defcon20.pdf)
and
[http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~sws/pubs/sbs13.pdf](http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~sws/pubs/sbs13.pdf)
come to mind).

