[Discuss] BLAS or LAPACK

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2006-06-16 18:01-0700 pw wrote:

> Is BLAS not GPL?

That question makes the understandable but incorrect assumption that BLAS
has a unique implementation.  In fact, BLAS is an API for some simple vector
operations which has been implemented many different times under a variety
of library names and licenses.  A number of these implementations (some free
[as in freedom], but non-GPL and some proprietary) are mentioned at
http://www.netlib.org/blas/faq.html.  However, that is not an exhaustive
list.  For example, just the other day I discovered yet another
implementation (called libgslcblas) that _is_ GPL and which is distributed
as part of GSL.

Alan
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Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the Yorick front-end to PLplot (yplot.sf.net); the
Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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