Linux did this before, but moved to PIC around 1995 as part of the a.out->ELF transition. ELF actually supports (and always did) non-PIC code on x86 Linux in s

Linux did this before, but moved to PIC around 1995 as part of the a.out->ELF transition. ELF actually supports (and always did) non-PIC code on x86 Linux in shared libs, ld.so will do fixups to the code on the fly. See http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/11/03/position-independent-code-pic-in-shared-libraries/ http://eli.thegreenplace.net/2011/11/03/position-independent...