http://gcc.gnu.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=52623
--- Comment #10 from David Edelsohn <dje at gcc dot gnu.org> 2012-03-22 23:53:14 UTC --- I recognize that a lot of FLOSS packages are developed on x86/Linux, but POWER/AIX is not x86/Linux. Upon further consideration, I am concerned that your proposal forces all applications to link using -brtl. Your proposal implies that libtool and GCC should build all shared libraries using your SVR4-compatibility design. One could adjust GCC and libtool to link all applications with -brtl, but libraries built the current way can work with older releases of GCC and with XLC. Even with the GCC change, many users will be confused by XLC breakage and it will be a steep learning curve to teach users to add -brtl to all applications that use newly-built FLOSS libraries using the new libtool design. I agree that AIX is gratuitously different from SVR4/Solaris/Linux with no particular benefit. However, it is what it is. Without cooperation from IBM and AIX to convert it to SVR4-compatibility by default, I'm not convinced that imposing this compatibility is a good idea when the GNU tools do not control the entire system stack. An additional problem is Binutils "strip" command does not support the -e/-E command line option to set F_LOADONLY.
