Update policy for community edition regarding bug fixes

Accelerated Computing HPC Compilers Legacy PGI Compilers
1

Hello,

I would like to make a suggestion about the policy of updates for the community edition versus the full paid edition, especially in the context of OpenACC.

When it comes to optimizations, new features, new architecture supports, etc., I totally understand allowing paid users to get these new updates rapidly, while requiring community users to wait a while (6 month updates).

However, I do not think the above should apply to bug fixes. When a community edition has a bug that prevents someone’s code from working, it is very difficult to force them to wait 6 months before they can use their properly-coded program.

As a member of the OpenACC users group, I think having a free up-to-date working compiler (with incremental bug fixes) is critical for OpenACC to be a viable option for many researchers (especially in academia).

Cutting-edge spec implementation, optimizations, and new hardware support are premium features that are understandable to require a paid subscription, but having the compiler work as intended should not be.

2

Thank you for your OpenACC interest. We are happy to provide tools
for you to learn and use the increased compute capabilities provided
with OpenACC and GPUs.

Since every release has bug fixes, aren’t you saying you want
monthly Community Edition releases?

I don’t think monthly Community Editions releases are a possibility currently, as they will certainly impact the Professional Edition sales.

And sales is the reason why there are new releases.

Are there specific problems in the 17.4 release that were not fixed until 17.10, that you had no workarounds for? Those would be good to know. We do not want you to be left stranded. And you should be willing to use the workarounds, if you need them.

There is one complaint we do not have much sympathy for, and
it goes like this “I just upgraded to the latest /OS X/Linux/gcc version, and the compilers are broken now”. The release notes and User Forum can tell you if new Linux or Apple releases are supported,
before you upgrade.

However, people with new machines can be put into that situation through no fault, and it is a reason we like to get OS releases working with our compilers as soon as we can.

dave

3

Hi,

"Since every release has bug fixes, aren’t you saying you want
monthly Community Edition releases? "

Yes, but only including the bug fixes, not the new features, hardware support, or optimizations.

Although I am no businessman, I do not think the sales of the professional edition would be heavily impacted in such a situation.

Otherwise what you are saying is that in a situation of a program-crashing bug, one can use our broken compiler for free, but to use a working one, you have to pay or wait 6 months. I do not think this was the idea of the community edition.

“There is one complaint we do not have much sympathy for”

I agree that those situations are NOT included what I am asking for.
One cannot expect the compiler to work the same if one is using an OS or library package newer than those that the PGI compiler claims support for. Support for the newer OS/libraries would fall under the “hardware support” category above.

“Are there specific problems in the 17.4 release that were not fixed until 17.10, that you had no workarounds for?”

Yes - for example, the multi-level derived type in Fortran. In 17.4 it was causing code crashes and was not fixed until 17.10.

As for right now, my code that worked fine in 17.9 now crashes with 17.10. I have been communicating back and forth with the support forum about this. If this turns out to be a compiler bug (which is likely) than this will make my code unusable on systems running the community edition for 6 months, as any bug fix will only be in the professional edition.

I have a professional license, but some systems I need to compute on use the community edition. If this is a bug and is fixed in 17.11, I still won’t be able to test my code on those systems for 6 months…

4

Thank you for your suggestions. I will pass them on.

There is no 17.11 or 17.12. The next release is 18.1.

dave