[ On Friday, December 21, 2001 at 17:36:47 (-0600), John Darrow wrote: ]
> Subject: Re: RFC: migration to a fully dynamically linked system
>
> 2. There are times when it is useful for a program, whether statically
> or dynamically linked itself, to (optionally) load pieces of code, etc.
> from shared objects.  This is the functionality currently provided to
> dynamically linked programs by dlopen(), but missing in statically
> linked programs.

I do not agree.  Any program which really needs the ability to load,
even optionally, any additional code after having started, can always be
dynamically linked.  This is the only way to even come close to
preserving the integrity of the unix process security model.

Furthermore I do not like the idea of ever allowing dlopen() to load any
library that might also be statically linked.  There may be potentially
sane solutions in Mach/NeXT/Darwin, but they may not be applicable
without bringing in all of dyld.

-- 
								Greg A. Woods

+1 416 218-0098;  <gwoods@acm.org>;  <g.a.woods@ieee.org>;  <woods@robohack.ca>
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; VE3TCP; Secrets of the Weird <woods@weird.com>