[llvm-dev] SPIRV-LLVM as an external tool

[Chris Lattner via llvm-dev]

On Feb 27, 2018, at 10:25 AM, Tom Stellard via llvm-dev <llvm-dev at lists.llvm.org> wrote:
> On 02/27/2018 05:07 AM, Anastasia Stulova wrote:
>>> SPIR-V does not have to be a part of LLVM for you to do this.  You can add
>>> the SPIR-V target to clang and then define a SPIR-V toolchain (i.e. clang/Driver/Toolchains)
>>> that uses the external tool to translate LLVM IR to SPIR-V.
>> 
>> 
>> Ok. I guess if Clang community accepts this way, it would be better to set up the SPIRV converter as a tool of LLVM.
>> 
>> So the question is are there any downsides of this? Or would anyone object if we add the converter to the LLVM project as an optional tool? We would of course take care of configuring and maintaining it ourselves.
> 
> There is no requirement that the tool needs to be an official part of the LLVM
> project to implement to use it this way  For example, the cuda toolchain
> in clang relies on a few proprietary tools from NVIDIA.
> 
> I think too much emphasis is being placed on having this tool be part of the
> LLVM project.

Agreed.  Why is it good for LLVM to include this tool?

If there was a strong rationale for doing so, it would probably make sense to be a new subproject of some sort rather than included in the main llvm repo (not sure if that is what was being proposed).

-Chris