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Hello. I'm the author of the PC Perspective story that this post cites. https://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Tech/Breaking-OpenCL-Merging-Roadmap-Vulkan https

Hello. I'm the author of the PC Perspective story that this post cites. https://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Tech/Breaking-OpenCL-Merging-Roadmap-Vulkan https://www.pcper.com/reviews/General-Tech/Breaking-OpenCL-M... I am currently writing up another post, which is based on an interview I did with Tom Olson (Chairman of Vulkan) and Neil Trevett (President of Khronos Group) on Friday. While the implications of the announcement are smaller than I speculated (ex: the Khronos Group weren't concerned about Apple's ownership over OpenCL's trademarks and a few necessary patents) the announcement is correct. Neil: "Congratulations. You win the prize for finding the extra press release hidden in the quote." I'm still digesting the dense, ~40 minute discussion, but OpenCL's roadmap is to merge into Vulkan's. There's a bunch of reasons for it (ex: OpenCL pushes FP32 support onto hardware where it doesn't make sense, like DSPs and deep-learning applications) but I'll elaborate on that with the follow-up. Might take a few days though. Also, here's Neil's presentation from IWOCL: https://www.khronos.org/developers/library/2017-iwocl https://www.khronos.org/developers/library/2017-iwocl

roel_v 9y ago
Thanks for following up here, and sorry that my reply is late - too late to make any difference, probably. Yes, I was at Neil's keynote that you link the slides for. I still do not agree with your conclusions, or maybe rather with how you frame them. OpenCL is not 'being merged into Vulkan'. Rather, 'the next version(s) of OpenCL will align more ('converge') with Vulkan'. For example, you claim 'The Khronos Group are converging OpenCL and Vulkan into a single API: Vulkan.'. I do not get that from either of the Khronos 'clarifications', nor from any of the presentations given last week, nor from any of the discussions I had with people from the various Khronos workgroups, including the OpenCL-related ones. I've asked a few other people who were there how they perceived the message but haven't heard back yet. Maybe I'm just thick, wouldn't be the first time. But for now I do feel that you're spinning a more sensational story ('OpenCL will go away and be merged into Vulkan!' - on a meta-level, it's a sad reflection on my life that I consider that 'sensational'...) than what is actually going on.
- ScottMichaud 9y ago
  I'm still writing up the interview that I did with them (Tom Olson and Neil Trevett) on Friday, after the initial post was published, but they do intend to merge OpenCL into Vulkan. One thing they did want me to make clear, though, is that this is an OpenCL decision. Vulkan's roadmap isn't changing. While I'll elaborate in the follow-up post, it's to move OpenCL more low-level and abstract (ex: as I said above, FP32 makes no sense for many DSPs or deep-learning accelerators).
  - ScottMichaud 9y ago
    The interview is up: https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Follow-Neil-Trevett-and-Tom-Olson-Khronos-Group-Discuss-OpenCL-and-Vulkan-Roa https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Follow-Neil-Tre...

roel_v 9y ago

Thanks for following up here, and sorry that my reply is late - too late to make any difference, probably. Yes, I was at Neil's keynote that you link the slides for. I still do not agree with your conclusions, or maybe rather with how you frame them. OpenCL is not 'being merged into Vulkan'. Rather, 'the next version(s) of OpenCL will align more ('converge') with Vulkan'. For example, you claim 'The Khronos Group are converging OpenCL and Vulkan into a single API: Vulkan.'. I do not get that from either of the Khronos 'clarifications', nor from any of the presentations given last week, nor from any of the discussions I had with people from the various Khronos workgroups, including the OpenCL-related ones. I've asked a few other people who were there how they perceived the message but haven't heard back yet. Maybe I'm just thick, wouldn't be the first time. But for now I do feel that you're spinning a more sensational story ('OpenCL will go away and be merged into Vulkan!' - on a meta-level, it's a sad reflection on my life that I consider that 'sensational'...) than what is actually going on.

ScottMichaud 9y ago
I'm still writing up the interview that I did with them (Tom Olson and Neil Trevett) on Friday, after the initial post was published, but they do intend to merge OpenCL into Vulkan. One thing they did want me to make clear, though, is that this is an OpenCL decision. Vulkan's roadmap isn't changing. While I'll elaborate in the follow-up post, it's to move OpenCL more low-level and abstract (ex: as I said above, FP32 makes no sense for many DSPs or deep-learning accelerators).
- ScottMichaud 9y ago
  The interview is up: https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Follow-Neil-Trevett-and-Tom-Olson-Khronos-Group-Discuss-OpenCL-and-Vulkan-Roa https://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphics-Cards/Follow-Neil-Tre...