Old binutils fails to link a shared library if there is a reference to a hidden symbol that isn't locally defined.

callee.c

void callee() {
    /* Look I'm not declared as a hidden symbol! */
}

caller.c

__attribute__((__visibility__("hidden"))) void callee();

void caller() {
    callee();
}

ld-2.17.50.txt

% gmake
ld -v
GNU ld version 2.17.50.0.6-20.el5_8.3 20061020
gcc -fPIC -o caller.o -c caller.c
gcc -fPIC -o callee.o -c callee.c
gcc -shared -o libfoo.so caller.o callee.o
/usr/bin/ld: caller.o: relocation R_X86_64_PC32 against `callee' can not be used when making a shared object; recompile with -fPIC
/usr/bin/ld: final link failed: Bad value
collect2: ld returned 1 exit status
gmake: *** [all] Error 1
%

ld-2.21.1.txt

% gmake
ld -v
GNU ld (NetBSD Binutils nb1) 2.21.1
gcc -fPIC -o caller.o -c caller.c
gcc -fPIC -o callee.o -c callee.c
gcc -shared -o libfoo.so caller.o callee.o
%

Makefile

all:
	ld -v
	gcc -fPIC -o caller.o -c caller.c
	gcc -fPIC -o callee.o -c callee.c
	gcc -shared -o libfoo.so caller.o callee.o

clean:
	rm -f *.o *.so