I'd like to revisit the discussion of: https://lists.apache.org/thread.html/27b84e4fc0e0728f2e4ad8b6827d7f996635021a5a4d47b5d3f4dbfb@%3Cdev.mxnet.apache.org%3E now that a year has passed.
My motivation is: 1. There's a lot of hard-to-read '#if CUDNN_MAJOR' code referencing cuDNN versions back as far as v4(!?). We need to clean this out before it hampers our ability to nimbly move the codebase forward. 2. There seems to be a difference of opinion on whether we should be supporting version 'N-1' (e.g. cuDNN6). Our current MXNet 1.5 candidate does not compile against cuDNN v6, so this should be either fixed or be up-front stated to the user community. The breaking PR was https://github.com/apache/incubator-mxnet/pull/14476. Having read the prior discussion, my take on it is: - Users should be given an ample time period (1 year?) to move to a new CUDA/cuDNN version once it becomes 'usable.' - We should not claim to support a given version if it is no longer part of the MXNet CI. User's should be warned of an impeding dropping of this 'testing support.' So these statements do not necessarily promise 'N-1' support. I could see a transitioning of the CI from CUDA9-only -> CUDA9&10 -> CUDA10 only. Some period before CUDA9 is dropped from CI, the user community is warned. After that time, CUDA10 might be the only version tested by CI, and hence the only version supported (until the next CUDA version came around). Let me propose as a 'strawman' that we claim to support CUDA version 9 and 10, with cuDNN version 7 only. Those versions have been out for over 1.5 years. So no CUDA 8 or cuDNN v6 support- over 1.5 years old with no coverage by our CI. -Dick
