Have you guys seen this fatelf stuff before?

Question

I was just reading through some of the backpages on reddit... Anyhow, this fatelf concept is new to me. I was just wondering if it would ever be possible for something like this to be utilized by arch. I think it would be really cool if both the x86 and the x86_64 portions of arch could be merged back into one. I must admit that I don't understand this all too well, but it really does seem quite interesting.
http://icculus.org/fatelf/

Answer 1

From the standpoint of the x86 version I do agree with the added size and complexity that this would create. However, for the 64-bit version of arch I think it would make things more clean. I think i have around 30 different lib-32... packages on my computer, which all work great until I install something which is not familiar with the arch lib layout, then there is trouble. I think if the 32-bit and 64-bit libs were combined under the 64-bit ed, then such situations would just not arise. Perhaps I am just looking at this from the end user's point of view though. If it was considerably more difficult for the people making the packages, then I would see it as a bad thing. However, if on the other hand it took the same amount of effort to create one combined package as it would to create either package seperately, then what would happen is there would be less work in total for the people creating these packages. Or maybe at some point in the future there could be the option to install a 32-bit, 64-bit combined library instead of the standard 64bit lib that would come with the system. That way people who have no desire to run 32bit software would not experience the swell from these larger binaries, however people who do want to run 32bit stuff would have a more simple implementation.
Sorry to worry you guys, I don't really have any intention of wanting to make arch into archbuntu. I just thought this idea was interesting and wanted to see if it could be usable here and if so where.