OpenCL (the API) will merge into Vulkan, but OpenCL C/C++/DCompute/compute shaders (the kernel languages) will remain separate as they compile to SPIRV, which is compiled into the native binary format.
Can you explain this a bit more clearly? As I understood it, OpenCL's compute API will look like Vulkan's functions and nothing from Vulkan side will change (interpreting this from the fact that Vulkan group apparently won't be involved in this merge -- according to the interview)
How will everything possibly work? Is it just that OpenCL's API will change and the libraries for OpenCL will remain the same or will the library be merged into Vulkan too? I'm just confused since the programming models are so different.
AFAIU Vulkan will continue in the direction it is going.
I imagine that the OpenCL API will replace the directly comparable parts of the APIs (e.g. contexts queues images/buffers) so that OpenCL will use the Vulkan "definition". OpenCL kernels would go next to compute shaders in terms of the pipeline. There of course would be some additional things added to the combined API to support OpenCL specific things (like pipes).
But alas, I am no more privy to these things than you, and the above is pure speculation.