Re: [wwwdocs] Add "-fexternal-blas" to gcc-4.3/changes.html

[Salvatore Filippone <salvatore dot filippone at uniroma2 dot it>]

For the interpretation of the BLAS name as referring to a library, the
ultimate answer is: use the source! In this case,  the orignal paper
available (for ACM account holders) at  
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=77626.77627&coll=portal&dl=ACM&idx=77626&part=periodical&WantType=periodical&title=ACM%20Transactions%20on%20Mathematical%20Software%20%28TOMS%29&CFID=4152411&CFTOKEN=52886478

and the abstract says: 
"This paper describes a model implementation and test software for the
Level 3 Basic Linear Algebra
Subprograms (Level 3 BLAS). The Level 3 BLAS are targeted at
matrix-matrix operations with the
aim of providing more efficient, hut portable, implementations of
algorithms on high-performance
computers. The model implementation provides a portable set of Fortran
77 Level 3 BLAS for
machines where specialized implementations do not exist or are not
required. The test software aims
to verify that specialized implementations meet the specification of the
Level 3 BLAS and that
implementations are correctly installed."


Sounds pretty explicit to me: all libraries provide implementations of
the BLAS standard API, whose functional behaviour is defined by the
reference implementation on netlib. 


(Note: the text on the public ACM page says "Level 2" but the abstract
in the full PDF file correctly refers to level 3 BLAS)

Salvatore