Hello! This is my first post as the community manager for the oneAPI community. For this conversation with the community-at-large, I want to talk about open platforms and their importance.
What is the most famous open platform that you can think of?
Here is one I am thinking of…. here is a hint: it starts with an L and ends with an X.
Yes! Linux!
Linux kernel and its userspace counterparts constitute a platform. While there are plenty of open platforms, and even open specifications, Linux is the one that most people know that showcases the many kinds of collaborators around one codebase under an open source license.
The Linux platform runs the world's infrastructure whether that's satellites, cars, phones or the cloud. The community is full of individuals, organizations, and businesses who compete with each other, work with each other and yet they all collaborate as an example of a community endeavor towards a common goal. Classic open source projects follow suit!
oneAPI has a similar story. Today, there is a large selection of software accelerators available to us from a diverse set of providers. Some are dance partners with each other, some might be future dance partners. In the end, we have a large party filled with many options!
oneAPI is an open, industry-supported initiative that allows you to write code that can be implemented on many accelerators. That means you can adapt the code base from an Intel processor to an NVIDIA GPU, to a FPGA. You can get even fancier: you can have an architecture with many types of accelerators and write an overall system that takes advantage of an FPGA and an NVIDIA GPU!
Another important aspect of the oneAPI community is the open governance model that is currently implemented. Open governance means that there are more than one stakeholder. With multiple stakeholders invested in oneAPI, we build trust knowing that oneAPI is not dominated by any one member. It also means that this community will be more resilient as it is not tied to any single member.
Like the Linux model, we have a community rich with researchers, entrepreneurs, technologists, and students. We have a community that is global, accessible, and eager to collaborate with each other to bring about innovation.
Would love to hear what you think of open vs closed ecosystems.
cover image: Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
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