common ld and COFF (Re: ld - the link editor)

[I. S. Law Steve]

The UNIX link editor (ld) and the object file format (COFF) are part
of the common Software Generation Systems technology as described in
Don Kretsch's paper on "Software Generation Systems" published in the
proceedings of 1983 International Telecommunication Conference in
Sweden.

The common ld (and COFF) has much more features than most people know
of.  For example, it supports indirect linkage (transfer vectors),
incremental link editing, and regions.  All these features were actually
heavily used in/by various systems/projects such as UNIX/RTR and #5ESS
(switching systems) even before UNIX adopted them in System V.

The greatest thing about the common ld and COFF is that they are common.
It saves tremendous amount of development and maintenance efforts.  It
also save the developers' effort of learning new system utilities.
Have you folks figured out what is "common" stands for yet?  Common across
UNIX implementations? Common across OS? Common across machines? or Common
across languages?
                                Steve Law
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