libOpenCL source code available

[Vincent Danjean]

Le 31/05/2013 19:41, Giuseppe Bilotta a écrit :
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 12:02 PM, Vincent Danjean <vdanjean at debian.org> wrote:
>>   Hi,
>>
>> Le 31/05/2013 11:36, Andreas Beckmann a écrit :
>>> On 2013-05-31 09:39, Giuseppe Bilotta wrote:
>>>> Am I correct in understanding that only condition 1. is the problem?
>>>> (In particular, condition 4. would not apply since the binary would be
>>>> distributed as in independent package, and not as part of an
>>>> implementation.)
>>
>> For me, 3 is also problematic from Debian
> 
> Why would that be problematic? If (1) is removed and replaced with the
> possibility to redistribute the (modified) source and relevant binary,
> it seems to be that (3) means you have to share your changes with
> Khronos and allow them to add them to the official package. Is that a
> problem?

http://wiki.debian.org/DesertIslandTest
"The Desert Island Test emphasizes the freedom to distribute FreeSoftware
without the consent or knowlege of a third party."

>> And, if 1 is removed, I do not know how 4 will be rewritten.
> 
> I still think that contacting the Khronos Group about this would be a
> good move. I could do it, but I think that someone with a more
> official position in Debian would be more appropriate. It should be
> enough to raise the issue that in the present state the LICENSE does
> not allow packaging of the loader in the Debian main repositories,
> maybe with some hints about the (minimum amout of) changes that would
> be needed to allow its packaging?

I not interested enough for Khronos ICD loader to be free software
to put lots of my (few) free time into trying the convince them to
change.
They have been asked since a long time to publish their sources
under a free license. No move from them have been seen until
very recently (ie until ocl-icd have been written).
  Moreover, changing the license of a code can be very complex
(requires the acknowledgment of all authors) so I'm not sure
that Khronos will be able to even if they want to.

>> Now we have a full access to description of the whole array of functions
>> the last point is less interesting. But will Khronos publish the
>> sources of the loader of OpenCL 1.3 as soon as it will be available ?
> 
> This is possibly another question that could be raised with them.
> Maybe stressing the opportunity for interoperability and
> implementor-independence could help convince them? No harm in trying,
> anyway.

Yes. But if I've free time, I will use it to try to update my
pocl packaging to 0.8pre1 release, not to talk to Khronos (that never
answer on their forums about these points)

>>   More me, all the difficult part of an OpenCL implementation is
>> into the ICD itself (and the associated compiler).
>>   If ocl-icd does not work on a plateform whereas Khronos implementation
>> works, will all currently available info, it should be easy to fix it.
> 
> Of course the hard part remains the actual ICD implementation, and
> having the Khronos loader will not fix that. But relying on the actual
> reference loader, compiled from source, rather than on a proprietary
> one or a reverse engineered one still seems like the best option.

The official one does not respect exactly the specification (for example,
it does not check for the presence of the cl_khr_icd in loaded ICD)
and does not allow to use it as a user (ie non root) with a user-specified
ICD (required to test an ICD implementation without being root).
Otherwise said, I'm not really impressed by their implementation
of the specifications.
  If the Khronos ICD loader was truly free and accept external patches,
then it can be interesting for Debian. Until then... But any people
that want to archive this goal (free Khronos ICD Loader with upstream
that integrates patches) would have my sympathy. It is just I'm not
interested into doing this work.

  Regards,
    Vincent

> --
> Giuseppe "Oblomov" Bilotta
> 


-- 
Vincent Danjean          Adresse: Laboratoire LIG - Bât. INRIA Rhône-Alpes
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