OpenBLAS Deciding Whether To Drop Support For Russia's Elbrus CPUs

[blacknova]

AMD and Intel CPUs have legitimate non-military uses. Elbrus doesn't. it's a terrible VLIW architecture that no one would ever use unless they're required to, and only Russian military is likely to be required to use it.

Not just military, government and financial sectors. And it is not like normal company cannot get Elbrus servers or workstations it is just unpractical. Performance and efficiency numbers are below x86 and arm, the price is very high for the bang. Though if sanctions restrict availability of x86 hardware that would change things for a lot of players.

[CochainComplex]

And on top of that OpenBLAS might be very useful in any military equipment. Putting this puzzle together I do understand the move.

[Danny3]

Good!
Just stop supporting any Russia based project!
They chose to put a bad person as president and allowed him to invade another country and kill a lot of innocent people.
Fuck Russia's war!

[CochainComplex]

In Europe we have a dual use list there are items listed (also software) which are prohibited to be used in equipment which is going to be shipped to Russia, regqrdless of its nature (including civil science and medical products) some encryption algorithms are also listed. So quite likely that openblas will end up on this list anyway

[hotaru]

Not just military, government and financial sectors.

for at least the first four countries on this list (Saudi Arabia, Israel, Russia, United States), government and military are the same thing.

and the financial sector probably has no use at all for OpenBLAS on Elbrus if they even use Elbrus at all.

[Alex/AT]

A wise decision indeed, if to be taken.

[coder]

How hard can it be to keep politics out of software development? They'd need to be mentally ill to consider something like this, as it benefits absolutely nobody, certainly not Ukraine...

You should at least try to have some empathy. There are people for whom this is a very emotive issue, and if they're being asked to review and accept patches from what they consider to be a hostile foreign power, then I can understand why they might refuse.

...snuck in by some loudmouth sjws.

Okay, so you're clearly not above politics, either.

Politics don't belong here, besides ones related to software,

Not a very compelling argument, IMO. If you care about de-politicizing software projects, then the most winning argument would probably explore the likely downsides of taking this route.

Of course, free software is about a diversity of approaches and viewpoints. So, there will always be some projects on either end of the spectrum. Even so, there's probably a point where most would consider it too contrary to their own existential priorities to remain fully-cooperative with all contributors.

But which country is at war with what country? It's got nothing to do with software, never has, and certainly shouldn't start now.

Would you consider taking up arms to fight a hostile, invading force? But you'll still accept they're patches that are intended primarily to benefit their government and military machinery? It's not a theoretical question, for some.

[coder]

I don't see the benefit in what they're doing here. They're not going to stop Russia's efforts,

You could think of it in the same vein as whether to continue an industrial partnership with Germany in 1939. Nobody knows Putin's plans, but it seems plausible he's embarking on a conquest to reunite the USSR. This won't make a difference today or tomorrow, but there's a moral question of contributing to future conflicts in some way. It's not entirely dissimilar from my own decision not to work in the "defense" industry, building weapons of war.

But, since they've publicized the idea of dropping support, I'm sure this will be the end of their contract regardless.

What contract? The article didn't say Russia is actually paying any OpenBLAS developers anything. Do you know differently?

Russia seems to have a very low tolerance for those who express opposition.

I think most of their government contractors are interested in the fastest/best/cheapest way to reach their goals, more than politics. But who knows? It could influence some.

[GI_Jack]

How hard can it be to keep politics out of software development?

Impossible. Software development is inherently political. As much as developing Free Open Source Software is a pretty damn big political statement on its own.

What I would never want to see is nationalist jingoism be the basis for actions by FOSS developers. That itself is a pretty damn big political statement.

Just remember: Governments, especially those with budgets for weapons of war, have the resources to re-develop most of what you do in Free software, and then just not share it publicly. Militarized software that is Free Open Source software is because said resources for developing weapons are made open to the public for non-military purposes, not the other way around.

Next question in Elbrus CPUs? Is there a civilian non-military use case? Are they easy for civilians to acquire and run linux on an elbrus CPU? If the answer "no", they shouldn't be supported. If civilians can easily acquire Elbrus CPUs, and operating these for non-intelligence, non-military, and non-police systems, then by all means, should continue support.

I denounce the Russian invasion in full force, but just a reminder that we are under no obligation ethically to jump when the military of any nation, including our own snap their fingers.

AMD and Intel CPUs have legitimate non-military uses. Elbrus doesn't. it's a terrible VLIW architecture that no one would ever use unless they're required to, and only Russian military is likely to be required to use it.

If this is true, it should never have had an Elbrus port to start with, and should be purged post-haste.

[dimko]

It's a really crappy VLIW CPU ... The only reason you'd ever want to use it is if you have no other options (e.g., you're in Russia and can't buy anything good).

Actually Russia was developing cheap easily mas produced CPU for a decade or so. Reason was not to depend on US hardware, that can contain hardware exploits. And 7-8 years later US CPUs started to have fun exploits like Spectre and what not.
Said CPU were to be somewhat i386 compatible if remember correctly, good enough for office/official use and some military application. Not to replace CPU for business/gaming etc. Albeit, cheap Elbrus processors can probably do Open Office and whatever normies do in the office.