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Mold 1.8 Released With More Features For This High Performance Linker

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  • Mold 1.8 Released With More Features For This High Performance Linker

    Phoronix: Mold 1.8 Released With More Features For This High Performance Linker

    It's been one year and a few days since the introduction of Mold 1.0 as a high performance linker alternative to GNU Gold and LLVM LLD while debuting today is Mold 1.8 as the newest feature release...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    "Sold", lol ;-)

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    • #3
      Originally posted by rene View Post
      "Sold", lol ;-)
      Agree. Mold as a descriptive name for a piece of software is less lol. :P

      Comment


      • #4
        I think the sold-linker is a problem for the mold-linker.

        In the mold-license-file stands:
        Note: I'm looking for a sponsor who wants to purchase the copyright
        of this work and relicense it under a more liberal license such as
        the MIT license. For now, mold is released under the GNU AGPL v3.
        ​So the author searching for sponsors, to change the license to a more liberal one.

        And on the GitHub-page of the sold-linker stand
        sold is a superset of mold; in addition to all the mold's features, sold supports macOS/iOS.
        That means. if sponsors supports mold, they suport a subset of the linker the author is working on.
        At as it looks like, the Linker with the OpenSource-license, will not work on Windows, macOS or operating systems other then Linux.

        Why don't the author starts a crowd-funding project like Blender3D have done it years before, for a relicense?

        Comment


        • #5
          I think also, that the success will not be lasting long with the current licenses.
          What mold/sold do is using better the cores of the processor.
          I think, that the linker developer of LLVM, GCC, VC++, etc are already working on it, to implement that feature in its linkers, too.
          If the other linkers are almost as fast as mold/sold, then there are lesser people using it, as already.
          Because currently, if you compile with the compiler of your choice, the compiler using the linker, which comes with the compiler.
          So users of mold/sold have to replace the standard linker of its compiler with the new one.
          If the default linker of the prefered compiler is always as fast, the motivation to replace the linker is less.

          And behind the different compilers are big companies.
          GCC is developed by RedHat/IBM, SUSE, .. etc.
          LLVM is the default compiling suite of Apple and integrated in XCode. Microsoft working also on it and porting its standard C++ library to it.
          VC++ the standard compiler of Microsoft.

          Comment


          • #6
            Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
            I think also, that the success will not be lasting long with the current licenses.
            What mold/sold do is using better the cores of the processor.
            I think, that the linker developer of LLVM, GCC, VC++, etc are already working on it, to implement that feature in its linkers, too.
            If the other linkers are almost as fast as mold/sold, then there are lesser people using it, as already.
            Because currently, if you compile with the compiler of your choice, the compiler using the linker, which comes with the compiler.
            So users of mold/sold have to replace the standard linker of its compiler with the new one.
            If the default linker of the prefered compiler is always as fast, the motivation to replace the linker is less.

            And behind the different compilers are big companies.
            GCC is developed by RedHat/IBM, SUSE, .. etc.
            LLVM is the default compiling suite of Apple and integrated in XCode. Microsoft working also on it and porting its standard C++ library to it.
            VC++ the standard compiler of Microsoft.
            Slow linkers are known for a long time and they don't increased speed that much. Mold is really a big step forward. People always think that big companies can succeed easily but forget that big companies can fail spectacular too.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
              I think also, that the success will not be lasting long with the current licenses.
              What mold/sold do is using better the cores of the processor.
              I think, that the linker developer of LLVM, GCC, VC++, etc are already working on it, to implement that feature in its linkers, too.
              If the other linkers are almost as fast as mold/sold, then there are lesser people using it, as already.
              Because currently, if you compile with the compiler of your choice, the compiler using the linker, which comes with the compiler.
              So users of mold/sold have to replace the standard linker of its compiler with the new one.
              If the default linker of the prefered compiler is always as fast, the motivation to replace the linker is less.

              And behind the different compilers are big companies.
              GCC is developed by RedHat/IBM, SUSE, .. etc.
              LLVM is the default compiling suite of Apple and integrated in XCode. Microsoft working also on it and porting its standard C++ library to it.
              VC++ the standard compiler of Microsoft.
              These big companies existed before and still didn't bother to produce something better, I doubt that this is going to change anytime soon albeit the argument you brought forward is valid for that possibility. But their fear of breakage and instability will always be detrimental to performance wheras Mold is free to experiment with new ideas that made it where it stands today. It already gained some traction with developers and I cannot see why the license change would harm that. And as long as it is as easy as adding -fuse-ld=mold, there is no real downside of using it as an alternative next to the toolchain linker.

              On my wish list for the next year is the ability to link the Linux kernel, Glibc and Binutils.

              Comment


              • #8
                Making macOS/iOS commercial-only is a much better solution than making the whole project source-available-only like was discussed previously (https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mold-1.7).

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by patrick1946 View Post
                  Slow linkers are known for a long time and they don't increased speed that much. Mold is really a big step forward. People always think that big companies can succeed easily but forget that big companies can fail spectacular too.
                  LLD has existed for awhile and is a big step forward.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
                    I think also, that the success will not be lasting long with the current licenses.
                    There are a couple different issues. 1) License, 2) Dependencies reducing portability 3) Reduced architecture support 4) Not being feature complete enough

                    Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
                    I think, that the linker developer of LLVM, GCC, VC++, etc are already working on it, to implement that feature in its linkers, too.
                    LLVM already has an option. I'm skeptical GNU or Microsoft will bother.

                    Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
                    If the other linkers are almost as fast as mold/sold, then there are lesser people using it, as already.
                    But the bfd / gold GNU linkers are not. That's why there is interest in other options. But there are other options other than mold / sold.

                    Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
                    Because currently, if you compile with the compiler of your choice, the compiler using the linker, which comes with the compiler.
                    The linker comes with the OS, not the compiler.

                    Originally posted by theuserbl View Post
                    LLVM is the default compiling suite of Apple and integrated in XCode. Microsoft working also on it and porting its standard C++ library to it.
                    Google, Facebook, IBM, Intel, AMD, ARM Ltd., Sony, Qualcomm, NVidia, FreeBSD / OpenBSD, and a whole slew of other companies.​

                    Comment

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