PathScale EKO Path 5 not for FreeBSD anymore?

From: O. Hartmann <ohartman_at_zedat.fu-berlin.de>
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2013 00:09:49 +0100
A while ago - approximately three years from now, i was looking for a
GPGPU capable solution for usage on FreeBSD and I stepped into the
compilers from PathScale which are supposed to handle OpenACC (like
OpenMP #pragma omp, but in this case #pragma openacc instead).

Well, there was hope since PathScale obviously had a FreeBSD commercial
solution. It was in BETA stage that time, I applied for getting a
testing copy, but never got an answer, even having had contact to
Christopher Bergström, CTO at PathScale.

Looking today at Phoronix,

(http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=pathscale_ekopath_5beta&num=1),

I read this benchmarking and followed the links which say that PathScale
opensourced their compiler suite a while ago

(http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=pathscale_ekopath4_open&num=1)

I was curious and looked at PathScales website where I found three years
ago also FreeBSD mentioned as a supported platform, but see foryourself,
what supported platforms today mentioned there:

http://www.pathscale.com/ekopath-compiler-suite

Well, at the end, this means there is simply no binary or package that
could be installed easily for scientists interested in that compiler.

I do not know whether there are motivations to produce a FreeBSD 10/9
compatible package from the newly emitted PathScale EKO Patch 5 Beta
compiler sources, which are available at github:

https://github.com/path64/compiler

Well, the official website of PathScale doens't mention FreeBSD anymore
and this must have a reason why they droped support or any intention to
support that OS. From the perspective of a "user", I'm the lonely
"idiot" within kilometres using FreeBSD for my day-to-day scientifice
work and sacrifice myself not having GPGPU capabilities. Something is
really going into the wrong direction here.

I'm very interested in the reasoning why PathScale droped FreeBSD and I
guess it would be nice to reveal the reasons.

Am I blind or is this again another erosion process of an operating
system usefull even for scientific purposes?

Well, I'm aware that my posting triggers again a lot of emotional
discussions (I guess), since it did in the past. I try to evaluate the
situation from the perspective of a "user", not someone who needs to be
a Os engineer to use an OS. It is a kind of deep running frustration to
see how the next great compiler suite for scientific purpose is simply
vanishing - as it did with the NAG compilers which were offered for
freeBSD as well as other OSs at the end of 1990s. Now there is no
offering anymore.

Regards,
Oliver


Received on Tue Feb 19 2013 - 22:10:03 UTC

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