Re: [RFC PATCH 0/8] Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 driver

[Greg Kroah-Hartman <gregkh@linuxfoundation.org>]

On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 12:07:03PM -0600, Jeffrey Hugo wrote:
> On 5/19/2020 11:41 AM, Greg Kroah-Hartman wrote:
> > On Tue, May 19, 2020 at 08:57:38AM -0600, Jeffrey Hugo wrote:
> > > On 5/18/2020 11:08 PM, Dave Airlie wrote:
> > > > On Fri, 15 May 2020 at 00:12, Jeffrey Hugo <jhugo@codeaurora.org> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > Introduction:
> > > > > Qualcomm Cloud AI 100 is a PCIe adapter card which contains a dedicated
> > > > > SoC ASIC for the purpose of efficently running Deep Learning inference
> > > > > workloads in a data center environment.
> > > > > 
> > > > > The offical press release can be found at -
> > > > > https://www.qualcomm.com/news/releases/2019/04/09/qualcomm-brings-power-efficient-artificial-intelligence-inference
> > > > > 
> > > > > The offical product website is -
> > > > > https://www.qualcomm.com/products/datacenter-artificial-intelligence
> > > > > 
> > > > > At the time of the offical press release, numerious technology news sites
> > > > > also covered the product.  Doing a search of your favorite site is likely
> > > > > to find their coverage of it.
> > > > > 
> > > > > It is our goal to have the kernel driver for the product fully upstream.
> > > > > The purpose of this RFC is to start that process.  We are still doing
> > > > > development (see below), and thus not quite looking to gain acceptance quite
> > > > > yet, but now that we have a working driver we beleive we are at the stage
> > > > > where meaningful conversation with the community can occur.
> > > > 
> > > > 
> > > > Hi Jeffery,
> > > > 
> > > > Just wondering what the userspace/testing plans for this driver.
> > > > 
> > > > This introduces a new user facing API for a device without pointers to
> > > > users or tests for that API.
> > > 
> > > We have daily internal testing, although I don't expect you to take my word
> > > for that.
> > > 
> > > I would like to get one of these devices into the hands of Linaro, so that
> > > it can be put into KernelCI.  Similar to other Qualcomm products. I'm trying
> > > to convince the powers that be to make this happen.
> > > 
> > > Regarding what the community could do on its own, everything but the Linux
> > > driver is considered proprietary - that includes the on device firmware and
> > > the entire userspace stack.  This is a decision above my pay grade.
> > 
> > Ok, that's a decision you are going to have to push upward on, as we
> > really can't take this without a working, open, userspace.
> 
> Fair enough.  I hope that your position may have made things easier for me.
> 
> I hope this doesn't widen the rift as it were, but what is the "bar" for
> this userspace?
> 
> Is a simple test application that adds two numbers on the hardware
> acceptable?

Make it the real library that you use for your applications that anyone
can then also use as well if they have the hardware.  Why would you want
something "crippled"?

> What is the bar "working"?  I intend to satisfy this request in good faith,
> but I wonder, if no one has the hardware besides our customers, and possibly
> KernelCI, can you really say that I've provided a working userspace?

How do you know who your customers really are, or who they sell the
chips to?  I could end up with one of these... :)

> > Especially given the copyright owner of this code, that would be just
> > crazy and foolish to not have open userspace code as well.  Firmware
> > would also be wonderful as well, go poke your lawyers about derivative
> > work issues and the like for fun conversations :)
> 
> Those are the kind of conversations I try to avoid  :)

Sounds like you are going to now have to have them, have fun!

greg k-h