GNU Binutils 2.39 Released

[Nick Clifton]

Hi Everyone,

We are pleased to announce that version 2.39 of the GNU Binutils project
sources have been released and are now available for download at:

  https://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/binutils
  https://sourceware.org/pub/binutils/releases/

  sha256 checksums:
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binutils-2.39.tar.bz2
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binutils-2.39.tar.bz2.sig
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binutils-2.39.tar.gz
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binutils-2.39.tar.gz.sig
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binutils-2.39.tar.lz
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binutils-2.39.tar.lz.sig
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binutils-2.39.tar.xz
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binutils-2.39.tar.xz.sig

This release contains numerous bug fixes, and also the following new
features:

  * The ELF linker will now generate a warning message if the stack is made
    executable.  Similarly it will warn if the output binary contains a
    segment with all three of the read, write and execute permission
    bits set.  These warnings are intended to help developers identify
    programs which might be vulnerable to attack via these executable
    memory regions.

    The warnings are enabled by default but can be disabled via a command
    line option.  It is also possible to build a linker with the warnings
    disabled, should that be necessary.
    
  * The ELF linker now supports a --package-metadata option that allows
    embedding a JSON payload in accordance to the Package Metadata
    specification. 

  * In linker scripts it is now possible to use TYPE=<type> in an output
    section description to set the section type value.

  * The objdump program now supports coloured/colored syntax
    highlighting of its disassembler output for some architectures.
    (Currently: AVR, RiscV, s390, x86, x86_64).

  * The nm program now supports a --no-weak/-W option to make it ignore
    weak symbols.

  * The readelf and objdump programs now support a -wE option to prevent
    them from attempting to access debuginfod servers when following
    links.

  * The objcopy program's --weaken, --weaken-symbol, and
    --weaken-symbols options now works with unique symbols as well.

Our thanks go out to all of the binutils contributors, past and
present, for helping to make this release possible.

Cheers
  Nick Clifton
  GNU Binutils Release Manager