[Call for help] Donate to support XGBoost4J on Apple Silicon

[hcho3]

Currently, users of Apple Silicon must build XGBoost4J / XGBoost4J-Spark from the source. Not only this is inconvenient, it makes it difficult to deploy apps that has dependency on XGBoost4J. It would be a big improvement if XGBoost4J shipped with a native binary targeting Apple Silicon.

Free CI services such as GitHub Actions do not provide support for Apple Silicon. Third-party cloud vendors such as MacStadium provide the service at a fixed monthly cost.

If you'd like to see native support for XGBoost4J on Apple Silicon, please consider making monthly donations at https://opencollective.com/xgboost/projects/ci-for-apple-silicon. We aim to raise 110 USD/month.

Disclaimer: "native support" does not mean that XGBoost would support the Apple Silicon GPU. XGBoost will use the CPU only.

Milestones

• Reach the funding goal of 110 USD/month.
• Rent Mac Mini 2023 from MacStadium: https://www.macstadium.com/bare-metal-mac
• Set up CI on the rented Mac Mini

[hcho3]

Closing, since GitHub Actions is now supporting M1 macs. actions/runner-images#8439

[radeva]

@hcho3 You can also try FlyCI's M1 and M2 runners. They are on average 2x faster and 2x cheaper than GitHub's AND we have a free tier for OSS projects (see below).

Install Instructions

1. Install FlyCI app and
2. Easily replace one line of code and start using FlyCI runners:

jobs:
 ci:
-    runs-on: macos-latest
+    runs-on: flyci-macos-large-latest-m1
   steps:
   - name: 👀 Checkout repo
     uses: actions/checkout@v4

500 mins/month Free for Public Repos

Since your repo is public, FlyCI offers 500 mins/month of free M1 runner usage with the flyci-macos-large-latest-m1 runner for public projects.

Don't hesitate to contact us in case the free tier doesn't suit your needs or you experience any issues with the runners. Our team is here to support you!

Best Regards,
Veselina Radeva
Product Manager at FlyCI