Mold 2.1 Linker Brings LoongArch CPU Support

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Mold 2.1 Linker Brings LoongArch CPU Support

Last month the Mold 2.0 high-speed linker was released that shifted from AGPL to MIT licensing after their monetization strategy didn't pan out. This weekend the project is out with its Mold 2.1 release as another step forward for this alternative linker to GNU Gold and LLVM LLD...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Mold-2.1-Adds-LoongArch

[rmfx]

Are they going to contribute financially too ? or they just add their arch support and expect the devs to handle the rest for free ?

[CommunityMember]

Are they going to contribute financially too ? or they just add their arch support and expect the devs to handle the rest for free ?

I am pretty sure you knew the answer before you asked.

Mold (and what was Sold, the "paid" variant) is now more of a pure labor of love by Rui, and his only (real?) hope for financial support will be if Mold is adopted by enough large customers that it gets integrated into something like the llvm food chain (just like his previous lld linker) and he get hired to support it all over again, and that means supporting "everything".

[xen0n]

Are they going to contribute financially too ? or they just add their arch support and expect the devs to handle the rest for free ?

According to the feature PR they seem to be already working on sending a 3A5000 box to Rui, which is a good start...

EDIT: apparently some factor is stopping Loongson from sending the hardware, maybe customs policy (not necessarily the Chinese customs) or something else. But at least I remember remote accesses should be readily available, via the GCC compile farm or one of the distros' porterboxen, so hopefully this shouldn't pose a risk forward...