MKL is redistributable; Should we package it?

[Lumin <cdluminate@gmail.com>]

Hello d-science folks,

I noticed that intel's math kernel library is redistributable[1].

Since it is widely used in various fields, an mkl package

in Debian archive my be beneficial to at least science

software users.

However despite of the explicit declaration that MKL

is redistributable, MKL itself is a proprietary and

its source is not available. That means mkl must enter

nonfree, and the packaging is to simply repack a pile

of binary blobs.

As a co-maintainer of CUDA I really dislike working on

huge binary blobs that are permitted to redistribute.

But CUDA is still uploaded and maintained due to

its usefullness.

So, what's your opinion about the mkl package?

MKL itself contains BLAS routines, FFT, etc. Scientific

packages may possibly gain a performance boost

from mkl if they can be linked against mkl.

[1] https://software.intel.com/en-us/mkl/license-faq

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Best,