ELF sections vs. segments

[Valery Ushakov <uwe%stderr.spb.ru@localhost>]

The question I have can probably be classified as a platonic
essentialism problem, but it has some practical conseqeunces too.

I've noticed that netbsd native elf signature check looks for a netbsd
note _section_.

  sys/kern/exec_elf.c
  - netbsd_elf_signature


OTOH, linunx compat looks for a linux note _segment_.

  sys/compat/linux/common/linux_exec_elf32.c
  - ELFNAME2(linux,signature)


Normally, it doesn't matter, as there's a note segment for each note
section.  However I'm playing with a forth system that cross-compiles
and writes out its own ELF image and that standalone image only has
segments, but no sections.

I'm inclined to think that a standalone ELF binary should be able to
get away with this kind of arrangement.  Sections are for linkers,
segments are for loaders.  The binary is intended to be loaded, so it
provides info about its segments and that should be enough.

Comments?  Shall we fix the check to look for note segments?

PS: Nit-picking - src/sys/kern/core_elf32.c ELFNAMEEND(coredump) uses
several variable names with "section" to refer to segments.  This
should probably be fixed.

-uwe