Package: sponsorship-requests
Severity: wishlist
X-Debbugs-CC: debian-science@lists.debian.org

Dear mentors,

  I am looking for a sponsor for my package "intel-mkl"

 * Package name    : intel-mkl
   Version         : 2018.2.199-1
   Upstream Author : Intel
 * URL             : https://software.intel.com/en-us/mkl
 * License         : Intel Simplified Software License (ISSL)
   Section         : science

Thanks for people who joind the discussion about MKL packaging
at debian-science list.

Intel MKL is widely used among scientific research/computing
communities
because of it's well-optimized and super fast.
As previously discussed
in debian-science list, having intel-mkl
in Debian archive would be
useful, and would benifit our
users (especially the scientific users).
So here is the package.

Note that this is not a normal RFS since it involves huge
non-free binary blobs. (~1GB source tarball)

The packaging repo containing debian directory is here:

  https://salsa.debian.org/science-team/intel-mkl

Upstream tarball is too huge so I uploaded it nowhere.
As documented in README.Debian, the tarball can be
found here:

  https://software.intel.com/en-us/mkl

Click "Free Download". The tarball will be available after
registration. (Re-distribution is explicitly allowed even
if one is required to register before downloading).
Checksums are written in debian/rules.

Local lintian test is totally clean. Please ignore
lintian Info "unused override *", because the lintian
overrides are automatically generated.

MKL package is a bit complex, but let me try to explain it:

1. Copyright, the way to get upstream source, upstream
   source structure annotation, can be found in README.Debian

2. Installation and Usage are explained in README.Debian,
   they should give you a basic idea how this package
   is organized.

3. There is a detailed binary package index in debian/control.
   Files are carefully split into small packages. It must
   be pointed out that the two most important nodes in
   the dependency graph are libmkl-rt and libmkl-dev.
   The reason why db_input importance is set to critical
   can be fould in recent discussion in debian-science.

   libmkl-rt is a run-time dispatching library. It auto
   matically selects shared object from which symbols
   are loaded. Typically it select one shared object
   from each of the three layers: interface layer,
   threading layer, and computational layer. To reduce
   my burden, I grouped the children librarires of
   libmkl-rt with three meta packages, respectively.

   libmkl-rt plus the basic set of static libraries
   plus the headers equal to libmkl-dev.

   intel-mkl metapackage is simply a wrapper of
   libmkl-dev. I expect that most user pull mkl
   by installing intel-mkl.

   intel-mkl-cluster is intel-mkl + cluster support.

   intel-mkl-cluster is intel-mkl + cluster support
   + multiarch (i386) libraries + all other misc stuff.

4. Despite of the 1000+ line control file, I tried my
   best to keep the rest part of packaging simple
   and elegant.

   Python script debian/control.py generates all the
   .install files and all the .lintian-overrides file.
   It scans upstream tarball and put files in a
   proper package. I think the comments in the script
   should be enough for one to fully understand
   what it does.

5. The last problem is a trivial license problem.
   There are ambiguous license declaration in
   several files. I'm waiting for upstream reply[1]

intel-mkl (2018.2.199-1) experimental; urgency=low

  * Initial release. (Closes: #895881)

[1] https://github.com/intel/mkl-dnn/issues/206#issuecomment-385154890

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