OT: NVIDIA releases source code of CUDA patches to LLVM Compiler (Was: Re: [Haifux] GPGPU talk part 3 postponed)

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Omer,

On Mon, 19 Dec 2011 11:59:31 +0200
Omer Zak <w1 at zak.co.il> wrote:

> On Mon, 2011-12-19 at 09:57 +0200, Shlomi Fish wrote:
> > Hi Michael,
> > 
> > On Fri, 16 Dec 2011 23:47:57 +0200
> > Michael Vasiliev <lists at infoscav.net> wrote:
> > 
> > > For you, GPU enthusiasts: http://tinyurl.com/7elbk7w
> > > 
> > 
> > first of all, this announcement (that NVIDIA releases the source code to the
> > CUDA patches to the LLVM compiler) is not off-topic to either the Linux-IL or
> > the Haifa Linux Club mailing lists. It may out-of-topic for the general
> > announcement of the OpenCL lecture.
> 
> I beg to differ with you, Shlomif.
> I think that the announcement is on-topic for Linux-IL.

I specifically said (and wrote) that both announcements are on-topic here and on
the Haifux mailing list, just that they may be a bit out-of-topic for one
another (though I also doubt it). So we agree.

> Being unfamiliar with the LLVM compiler, I'll restrict my argument to
> point out that the patches in question could be used (or at least
> studied) by other Free Software projects.

The LLVM compiler framework is Free and Open Source Software, under a
BSD-style licence: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Low_Level_Virtual_Machine ,
and has been under active development lately. It has been endorsed and
supported by Apple, who sees it as an alternative to the now GPLv3-licenced
GCC, but for their defence, one should note that LLVM and Clang can be used on
many non-Apple operating systems and architectures, which can benefit from them.

You are right that the patches in question should be usable by other FOSS
projects, and hopefully they are with no strings attached due to their
open-source licence, but one should still be suspicious of any future moves of
NVIDIA.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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