[Beowulf] Open source and the Draft Report of the Task Force on High Performance Computing

[Joshua Mora]

The codesign effort pushed by the new requirements/constraints (power and
performance) is shaking design decision of existing SW frameworks, hence
forcing to get rewritten overtime to add new fundamental functionality (eg.
progress threads for asynchronous communication and fault tolerance). 

The report, as a holistic view of the challenge, suffers from lack of detail
although references are provided for some of their statements. It is obvious
that such effort will require multi year investment in a wide range of
disciplines. It seems a reasonable amount based on the investments within the
HW industry that will seek ROI.

I personally think this cannot be anymore a country-only solely lead effort
and in terms of budget to develop such program, China could be already better
set. Keeping Intellectual Property is going to be difficult under the pressure
to deliver within timelines.

Joshua.

> To this reports defense, it does read as if to reference the near future, a

> future where we throw out all existing code and start from scratch.  The
report 
> seems to be making a sci-fi-esque call for a complete rethink and
reinvention 
> of billions-and-billions of lines of code.  Very admirable.