Hello d-science folks, I noticed that intel's math kernel library is redistributable[1]. Since it is widely used in various fields, an mkl package in Debian archive my be beneficial to at least science software users.
However despite of the explicit declaration that MKL is redistributable, MKL itself is a proprietary and its source is not available. That means mkl must enter nonfree, and the packaging is to simply repack a pile of binary blobs. As a co-maintainer of CUDA I really dislike working on huge binary blobs that are permitted to redistribute. But CUDA is still uploaded and maintained due to its usefullness. So, what's your opinion about the mkl package? MKL itself contains BLAS routines, FFT, etc. Scientific packages may possibly gain a performance boost from mkl if they can be linked against mkl. [1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/mkl/license-faq -- Best,
