On Windows, the Microsoft compilers and linkers have inserted such toolchain/library version metadata into PE executables for decades now (the "RICH" header — h

On Windows, the Microsoft compilers and linkers have inserted such toolchain/library version metadata into PE executables for decades now (the "RICH" header — https://bytepointer.com/articles/the_microsoft_rich_header.htm https://bytepointer.com/articles/the_microsoft_rich_header.h...). At the time that Microsoft started doing it, paranoiacs thought it was some kind of anti-piracy software fingerprinting mechanism, embedding the compiling computer's MAC address or something. But really, it serves exactly the same purpose that Golang's effort does here: to let you map compiled-artifact back to inputs.