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Intel acquires Linutronix

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Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#101

Post by exikyut »

dannyw wrote: post #16
bestouff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their current CPU-features-as-a-service marketing push doesn't look like a right move to me.

Like it or not, that's probably where the industry will be in 5 years. You might not like it, but X-as-a-service make way more money for the company, and shareholders. It'll probably look like this: buy a 'cheap' Intel CPU for $99 (say, 4P, 12E cores clocked at 2 GHz), with "Turbo" to 4.5 GHz being a $79/year subscription and "Extreme Turbo Max" to 5.1 GHz being an additional $35/year. First year free, of course, to…

I would not like to order my dystopian cyberpunk future from IBM's or Oracle's or Microsoft's mail order catalogues, please.

IIUC, you needed to license each individual core of IBM's POWER servers. And then license the exact set of software features you needed enabled.

I don't think I need to talk about Oracle licensing.

I only recently learned (aww, can't re-find the comment) that Microsoft volume licensing in enterprise charges a seat license for Macs not running Windows.

This feels like an even more depressed reinvention of that. Me not want.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#102

Post by enos_feedler »

oumua_don17 wrote: post #96
enos_feedler wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lack of process advantage is exactly the problem. I remember being at nVIDIA in 2008 and being afraid about Intel's Larrabee x86-based GPU architecture. I was genuinely afraid because they could do full custom design on the latest process and so the physical design would be much superior to nVIDIA even if the higher level architecture was not as great. I didn't care much about the x86 aspect because I knew software…

And the rumour on the street was that Larrabee was one of the reasons why Pat Gelsinger had to leave Intel. And Intel Arc GPU is not being delivered on time either, last I heard was early Q1 2022 which is now Q2 2022. And in recent investor day conference, they again announced delays in their 2023 server chip. These delays have occurred after Pat at the the helm, combined with Intel burning through a lot of cash; I d…

Yes, forgot about the connection with Pat Gelsinger. It would be really disappointing if they blew Arc. In fact, given how much I think the current position of Intel is a product of their GPU project failure over a decade ago (look at where NVDA is today), I would put the most focus on absolutely nailing Arc and being competitive with NVDA and AMD in high performance GPU space. This would be a big morale lift and would probably be the first big step on the staircase to salvation.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#103

Post by FunkyDuckk »

belval wrote: post #15
pinewurst wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Name a single successful Intel acquisition, especially open source.

I read your statement and I thought "should be easy to find at least one"! Turns out it isn't: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Acquisitions_and_investm... Not only does none of these ring a bell, all the software ones seem to be legitimate garbage. Why did intel buy a cloud gaming startup?

Altera?

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#104

Post by echelon »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #91
echelon wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market economy has discovered this path and is allowing it. - iPhone you can't freely distribute software to (and Android makes it sufficiently difficult that only 0.01% of users can do it, so we may as well count them in too) - infrastructure giants that turn open source services into paid platforms and then accrete all developer mindshare - thin clients replacing thick clients. Workloads will move from desktop…

>Android makes it sufficiently difficult that only 0.01% of users can do it, That's BS. My mom installed f-droid by herself and can install apps from APKs without any help. It's not like you gotta root your phone, use ADB, or break out the CLI for that. All you have to do is tap Install when prompted, that's it. OMG, so complex, only 0.01% of users can tap Install in F-droid. /s

Purely anecdotal. It sounds like your mom is pretty tech savvy, though.

F-droid is less popular than Unix on the desktop. They don't publish any stats, but as a proxy, their Twitter account only has 10k followers and their forums receive fewer than ten posts a day.

Google trends shows "Ubuntu vs f-droid" dwarfing the latter term to the point there's no signal at all. Perhaps that's an unfair comparison, but I was expecting it to be closer.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#105

Post by landemva »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #54
zxspectrum1982 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure makes sense on the server-side. That's been IBM's business model for mainframes for half a century.

That's true, I had to pay IBM in the 90's for a CPU upgrade where they just dial in, change a config, and poof-more CPU. It was completely infuriating and one reason we migrated to HPUX. The hardware support from IBM was amazing though - the techs are very well trained and show up with basically another mainframe in the van and start swapping parts until things work.

IBM support was great. OTA CPU upgrade is convenient.

A while back suffered with HPUX hardware software not dialed in. Was painful slow working through issues with HP.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#106

Post by happycube »

cinntaile wrote: post #13
mhh__ wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intel have been making balls-out plays (i.e. they could've just sold the fab business and MBA-ed themselves to death) and making good money but their stock is 30% or so down from last year so I am inclined to agree. They'll never have a run like they did from Nehalem through to Zen's launch, but I think they're about to prove that they still have it and that they know how to sell chips.

AMD spun off their fab business, they didn't MBA themselves to death so I'm not sure why that's the only possible end result you see?

The bad CEO (Hector Ruiz) who probably would have done it left, and AMD eventually got a much much better CEO (Lisa Su).

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#107

Post by rzw2 »

taffronaut wrote: post #24

As Thomas Gleixner has been the x86 maintainer since 2008, what do they gain from this? It seems a pretty close relationship already. It's not as if they're acquiring IP. Conversely if they'll allow Linutronix to continue "to operate as an independent business" and e.g. work on other architectures like RISC-V, then that dilutes their access to the talent they're acquiring.

Maybe Intel is developing a new chip architecture and want to support linux from day 0? Or does Intel want a team of Kernel developers for their AI Silicon play, support the lower level architecture, or for their GPU play?

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#108

Post by formerly_proven »

exikyut wrote: post #101
dannyw wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like it or not, that's probably where the industry will be in 5 years. You might not like it, but X-as-a-service make way more money for the company, and shareholders. It'll probably look like this: buy a 'cheap' Intel CPU for $99 (say, 4P, 12E cores clocked at 2 GHz), with "Turbo" to 4.5 GHz being a $79/year subscription and "Extreme Turbo Max" to 5.1 GHz being an additional $35/year. First year free, of course, to…

I would not like to order my dystopian cyberpunk future from IBM's or Oracle's or Microsoft's mail order catalogues, please. IIUC, you needed to license each individual core of IBM's POWER servers. And then license the exact set of software features you needed enabled. I don't think I need to talk about Oracle licensing. I only recently learned (aww, can't re-find the comment) that Microsoft volume licensing in enter…

Enterprise licensing is a tarpit of unimaginable fuckedness.

The most ridiculous kind of licensing I've ever seen is an application (for data compression) where "how many bytes did it save" has to be accounted because it's one of the main ways the license fees are calculated.

And of course the usual insanity with twenty different portals (one for every other president, and about as old) per vendor, disjoint logins, human-in-the-loop verification and so on.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#109

Post by technofiend »

ianmcgowan wrote: post #54
zxspectrum1982 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sure makes sense on the server-side. That's been IBM's business model for mainframes for half a century.

That's true, I had to pay IBM in the 90's for a CPU upgrade where they just dial in, change a config, and poof-more CPU. It was completely infuriating and one reason we migrated to HPUX. The hardware support from IBM was amazing though - the techs are very well trained and show up with basically another mainframe in the van and start swapping parts until things work.

Dude, Sun in their heyday offered a similar service that allowed you to online more CPUs as needed. As I recall HP tried to as well. I mean sling all the hash you want at IBM, but at some point midrange people tried to do the same thing and for the same reasons - making it easy to capture every last bit of revenue and less enticing for you to switch platforms.

Re: Intel acquires Linutronix

#110

Post by jfoutz »

formerly_proven wrote: post #108
exikyut wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would not like to order my dystopian cyberpunk future from IBM's or Oracle's or Microsoft's mail order catalogues, please. IIUC, you needed to license each individual core of IBM's POWER servers. And then license the exact set of software features you needed enabled. I don't think I need to talk about Oracle licensing. I only recently learned (aww, can't re-find the comment) that Microsoft volume licensing in enter…

Enterprise licensing is a tarpit of unimaginable fuckedness. The most ridiculous kind of licensing I've ever seen is an application (for data compression) where "how many bytes did it save" has to be accounted because it's one of the main ways the license fees are calculated. And of course the usual insanity with twenty different portals (one for every other president, and about as old) per vendor, disjoint logins, h…

OOOHHH! kinda curious, if I create a byte stream that's larger when compressed, do they pay me?
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