Uuhh yeah thanks... It's checked, but for some reason gedit is set as default application to open it with and if I remove it as default app Ubuntu doesnt know what to do with it. It's no big deal I was just curious why Ubuntu isn't recognizing it as an executable. All of the binaries in the bin directory are doing this...
It's because we are compiling/linking with -pie. This adds address space randomization, which is a security/hardening feature that makes exploits more difficult. But it means that the executable is seen as a shared library by naive tools such as "file" and seemingly the Gnome file manager.
Yep that explains it perfectly. Thanks to all that responded and a
to the devs.
Edit: And yes I am using the Gnome file manager.....