For one Ollama supports interleaved sliding window attention for Gemma 3 while llama.cpp doesn't.[0] iSWA reduces kv cache size to 1/6.
Ollama is written in golang so of course they can not meaningfully contribute that back to llama.cpp.
It's impossible to meaningfully contribute to the C library you call from Go because you're calling it from Go? :)
We can see the weakness of this argument given it is unlikely any front-end is written in C, and then noting it is unlikely ~0 people contribute to llama.cpp.
They can of course meaningfully contribute new C++ code to llama.cpp, which they then could later use downstream in Go.
What they cannot meaningfully do is write Go code that solves their problems and upstream those changes to llama.cpp.
The former requires they are comfortable writing C++, something perhaps not all Go devs are.
I'd love to be able to take this into account, step back, and say "Ah yes - there is non-zero probability they are materially incapable of contributing back to their dependency" - in practice, if you're comfortable writing SWA in Go, you're going to be comfortable writing it in C++, and they are writing C++ already.
(it's also worth looking at the code linked for the model-specific impls, this isn't exactly 1000s of lines of complicated code. To wit, while they're working with Georgi...why not offer to help land it in llama.cpp?)
What nonsense is this?
Where do you imagine ggml is from?
> The llama.cpp project is the main playground for developing new features for the ggml library
-> https://github.com/ollama/ollama/tree/27da2cddc514208f4e2353...
(Hint: If you think they only write go in ollama, look at the commit history of that folder)
llama.cpp clearly does not support iSWA: https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/issues/12637
Ollama does, please try it.
Dude, they literally announced that they stopped using llama.cpp and are now using ggml directly. Whatever gotcha you think there is, exists only in your head.
I'm responding to this assertion:
> Ollama is written in golang so of course they can not meaningfully contribute that back to llama.cpp.
llama.cpp consumes GGML.
ollama consumes GGML.
If they contribute upstream changes, they are contributing to llama.cpp.
The assertions that they:
a) only write golang
b) cannot upstream changes
Are both, categorically, false.
You can argue what 'meaningfully' means if you like. You can also believe whatever you like.
However, both (a) and (b), are false. It is not a matter of dispute.
> Whatever gotcha you think there is, exists only in your head.
There is no 'gotcha'. You're projecting. My only point is that any claim that they are somehow not able to contribute upstream changes only indicates a lack of desire or competence, not a lack of the technical capacity to do so.
FWIW I don't know why you're being downvoted other than a standard from the bleachers "idk what's going on but this guy seems more negative!" -- cheers -- "a [specious argument that shades rather than illuminates] can travel halfway around the world before..."