<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; ">Partner Marketing (developer relations) hired Astute Research to help them identify 20-25 Open Source HPC applications used by the research community. This effort is consistent with their charter. The Sun engineers assigned to this project are committed to work within the communities guidelines so contributed code would serve all supported platforms--they they are interested in maximizing performance on Sun, but I don't believe they plan contributing Sun-only code.<DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>BTW: Partner Marketing's charter is to increase the number of applications on the Sun and Solaris platform. They typically work with commercial software vendors.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>So what's Sun up to? It's a straight forward program. Sun benefits by increasing the number of research applications on Sun's Solaris X86 platforms and demonstrating a commitment to the academic community, which increases demand for Sun hardware within the research community (note: Sun hardware was recently chosen for a major deployment at the Texas Advanced Computer Center, TACC). Although I cannot speak for Sun's business plans, they have expressed interest in hosting a select number of these applications in their SunGrid hosting centers and providing compute power back to the research user communities--your users.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>They want to maximize the impact of the limited engineering resources assigned to this program, so the main criteria for Sun to get involved in that the application is in wide use within the research community.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>I hope this answers your questions. If you are interested, I'm happy to introduce you to the Sun people running the program.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Regards,</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>John</DIV><DIV><BR><DIV><DIV>On Mar 21, 2007, at 7:26 PM, Torbjorn Granlund wrote:</DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"><BLOCKQUOTE type="cite"><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">John Ravella <<A href="mailto:johnr@astuteresearch.com">johnr@astuteresearch.com</A>> writes:</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>According to my initial research, GMP is a popular applications used</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>in research areas of interest to Sun Microsystems.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>If interested in Sun's program for GMP, please contact me for a more</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>detailed explanation of the program.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Please tell us what Sun is up to.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>A fork, like Intel's MKL?</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Whatever Sun might be up to, I continue to develop the official GNU</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">GMP in my pace and as time permits.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I usually accept good patches</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">from individuals, if it is something not already in the GMP</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">development cvs.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>I do not usually accept non-trivial vendor specific</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">patches, in particular not from enterprises.<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN>This might sound</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">stubborn, but I really will not work for free, until I get free food,</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">free housing, free travel, free computers, and free beer.</DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><BR></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">--<SPAN class="Apple-converted-space"> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Torbjörn</DIV> </BLOCKQUOTE></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV>John Ravella</DIV><DIV>650.576.4459</DIV><DIV><A href="mailto:johnr@astuteresearch.com">johnr@astuteresearch.com</A></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN> </DIV><BR></DIV></BODY></HTML>