mold 1.7.0
mold 1.7.0 is a new release of the high-speed linker.
Just like previous versions, you need to apply oneapi-src/oneTBB@137c1a8 to libtbb if you do not use a bundled version of OneTBB library. OneTBB has merged this patch, but the most recent release of OneTBB hasn't picked it up yet.
Licensing
I'd like to inform users that I'm seriously considering changing the mold's license from AGPL to a source-available license unless I secure big funding. The new license would be something like individuals can use it for free but corporate users have to pay. mold started as my personal project, and I've been working on this full time for two years so far. I thought that I could earn a comfortable income if mold become popular, but unfortunately, I'm still losing my money. I think I need to take an action to make the project sustainable long term. For the details, please read my post.
New features
- [m68k] mold now supports the Motorola 68000 series microprocessors. Yes, it's the processor in the original Mac or Sun workstations in the 80s. This work is sponsored by m68k hobbyist communities.
Bug fixes and compatibility improvements
- We fixed a few issues for Facebook/Meta's BOLT optimizer (#789). Starting from the next LLVM release (we need llvm/llvm-project@20204db), BOLT should work on mold-generated executables out of the box.
- We fixed a long-standing symbol resolution issue involving GNU UNIQUE symbols which caused a link failure for a few programs. (730e970)
- Previously, if a version script contains a "C++" directive, and a symbol matches a non-C++ version pattern and a C++ version pattern, a wrong version could be assigned to the symbol. This has been fixed so that the mold's behavior matches with GNU ld. (9875150)
Acknowledgements
mold is an open-source project, and we accept donations via GitHub Sponsors and OpenCollective. We thank you to everybody who sponsors our project. In particular, we'd like to acknowledge the following organizations and people who have sponsored $32/mo or more during this release cycle: