AI Weekly Malaysia

Farid Zakaria proposes replacing the ELF executable format with SQLite, creating a prototype called SELF (Structured Executable & Linkable Format) where the binary itself is a SQLite database you can chmod +x and run. The article argues ELF is already a database that reinvents primitives like string interning, indexing, and foreign keys by hand, and that using SQLite would make parsing, querying, and modifying executables far simpler.

Why: If you build tooling around binary analysis, packaging, or dynamic linking, this is a concrete thought experiment in treating executables as queryable databases rather than opaque byte streams. The prototype lets you run SQL like 'SELECT soname FROM ldd' directly against a binary, which could simplify building dev tools, security scanners, or LLM-assisted code analysis pipelines that need structured access to executable metadata.

Daniel Gultsch reflects on 25 years of Jabber/XMPP, arguing that digital services should be treated as infrastructure that must remain collectively owned and interoperable through open standards, not controlled by profit-oriented corporations. He draws parallels to physical infrastructure (roads, water, power grids) and warns Europe against simply swapping American tech corporations for European ones.

Why: If you run messaging, chat, or real-time communication features in your product, this is a reminder that XMPP remains a viable open-standard alternative to proprietary platforms—and that vendor lock-in in communication infrastructure is costly to reverse later. Malaysian founders building chat or notification systems should weigh whether self-hostable XMPP-based solutions reduce dependency risk versus defaulting to a single cloud vendor's messaging API.

Farid Zakaria describes a Linux pattern where a SQLite database file doubles as an executable ELF binary by setting the SQLite file's 4-byte application ID (at byte offset 68) to 'SELF' and storing ELF components across SQLite tables. A custom self-exec interpreter extracts and runs the pieces, and Linux's binfmt_misc mechanism can register the pattern so the kernel executes it directly. The approach is demonstrated on NixOS but should work on other Linux distros with manual binfmt_misc registration.

Why: This is a clever hack with near-zero practical impact for most builders—it's a curiosity about file format overlap between SQLite and ELF. Unless you ship Linux distribution tooling or care about polyglot binary formats, there is nothing here to change in your workflow.