Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement • Hacker News Board

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#191

Post by dogma1138 » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 9:47 PM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #109

jordskott wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there is a reason on why ARM's GPU drivers are not updated on your device, it's hardly ARM's fault. ARM doesn't ship the SoC or the device directly to you, it ships it to the OEM. And it's the OEM who states the agreements. If you want to blame someone, starting by blaming the OEM.

ARM still writes the drivers for the chip and then dosent update or open them up. Not much OEMs can do about that.

ARM has a reference design which includes drivers. The OEM is responsible for the final design and validation. ARM cannot take responsibility for validating 1000s of implementations that vary in both hardware and software configurations and validate them for billions of devices. Neither can the FOSS community. For the handful of boards which are popular enough to have sufficient tracking for the FOSS community to take the wheel if an open source driver was available the OEM has sufficient incentive to support their platform. For the other 4,999,999,990 LowHo NiHao industries unbranded boards it wouldn't matter in the first place.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#192

Post by ajross » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 10:21 PM UTC

sweden wrote: post #155

ajross wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why has open source been so successful on the CPU then? Branch prediction, say, is no less a patent minefield than GPU framebuffer tiling. Yet gcc and LLVM have no trouble shopping optimizers. This is an excuse, basically. They just don't want to because they fear revenue lost to compatible implementations.

That's completely different, there is interest to expose your CPU architecture in order to help people write better compilers and better programs. But on a GPU, the whole interaction between the GPU and the application is abstracted by APIs like OpenGL and Vulkan and you own the driver, you own the compiler, you own the implementation and you own the architecture. So companies tend to protect their "secrets" since th…

And there is no interest in exposing your GPU architecture in order to help people write better compilers and programs?

Just as on a GPU, the whole interaction between the CPU and the application is abstracted by APIs[1] like C and Python.

[1] Yeah, we don't call them APIs. But then we don't call GLSL a "API" either. They're all languages.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#193

Post by flamedoge » Mon, Apr 03, 2017, 11:23 PM UTC

_anything_ wrote: post #56

nl wrote: post #53

This is worded like this because ImgTech had a duty to disclose the notice they received from Apple. Check out what the share price did: https://www.google.com.au/search?q=LSE%3A+IMG (down 60% - looks even more dramatic in the 5-day view)

There is definitely a lot of money to be made here, can't see it staying so low.

Great time to buy!

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#194

Post by throwaway2048 » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 12:15 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #190

wolfgke wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unluckily this is true. But there is a central difference: If such a security bug occurs in an open source software, you can in principle look for the bug source yourself to fix it to secure your computer to against attacks. If it is closed source, this is hardly possible or often such a self-defense is even illegal.

In theory yes, but just to take one well known example, the HeartBleed SSL bug was introduced in 2012 but wasn't found until 2014.

At least it can be patched, if the equivilent bug occured in a closed source arm SoC driver, it would NEVER be patched.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#195

Post by mirimir » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 2:31 AM UTC

beaconstudios wrote: post #68

mirimir wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that be considered manipulation? Or at least, using inside information.

I don't think it would be insider trading as they would not be buying or selling stocks based on non-public information.

OK, I guess. But it would have been illegal if Apple had shorted IMG before informing them about the end of licensing, right?

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#196

Post by xroche » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 5:42 AM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #81

In the GPU space it is impossible to not infringe on the IP of other vendors. In fact it is the major reason GPU vendors give for not having an open source driver. I have spoken to the CTO (Jem Davies) of ARM about the GPU drivers and open sourcing them more than once. And every time I've gotten the reply: "No, we can't, it opens us up to IP infringement suits." Full disclosure: I used to work in the ARM GPU division…

> In the GPU space it is impossible to not infringe on the IP of other vendors.

It's high time to reform the corrupted and broken patent system. Yes, I know, like having non-corrupted politicians, this is not going to happen.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#197

Post by ksec » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 7:13 AM UTC

winterismute wrote: post #58

exabrial wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The discussion between Apple and these guys must've really gone south for a nasty and desperate press release like this That's what I found most intriguing. Why go public with this? (Especially with ongoing litigation)

UK regulations on stock markets are quite tough, publicly listed companies must share information that could impact the company as soon as they can. Public opinion is pretty susceptible to this too due to events in recent years.

I call this good old fashioned and fair to shareholders. Not tough. Wall Street is basically where you get the worst , and unfair treatment as a shareholder.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#198

Post by ksec » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 7:54 AM UTC

robert_foss wrote: post #81

In the GPU space it is impossible to not infringe on the IP of other vendors. In fact it is the major reason GPU vendors give for not having an open source driver. I have spoken to the CTO (Jem Davies) of ARM about the GPU drivers and open sourcing them more than once. And every time I've gotten the reply: "No, we can't, it opens us up to IP infringement suits." Full disclosure: I used to work in the ARM GPU division…

Yes, that is why pretty much All GPU markers have deal cross licensed with each other.

The story from last year was that Apple's price for IMG acquisition weren't high enough, and Apple asked if they could buy ONLY the graphics portion. Which resulted in a NO from IMG.

Compared to ARM, some estimate Apple is paying $10M for the ISA and roughly $0.1 for each Ax SoC. So that is ~30M per year, ( There will be other cost for processor other then Ax, such as the Motion Processor etc ) Compared to paying roughly $80M USD for the Graphics alone, which Apple doesn't even use their design, nor their services ( Software Drivers ) they provide. So what likely happen was Apple wanted to pay far less, ( $20M? ), but their New CEO wanted them to pay for more.

My guess is that in the end Img will relent and license whatever Apple wanted for a price. If not, I am not sure how Apple will deal with old games that wont work with their new GPU which does support PVRTC.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#199

Post by ansible » Tue, Apr 04, 2017, 4:50 PM UTC

coredog64 wrote: post #175

ansible wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nvidia's Tegra is key to their mobile compute efforts. There is no way they are going to license it to anybody. They would sell Apple the chip... maybe. But they would want Apple to buy into their whole stack, which Apple isn't going to want either.

As near as I can tell, the CPU in Tegra chips are just vanilla core designs that Nvidia licenses from ARM. The secret sauce is the GPU. Given enough money I think Nvidia would license their GPU designs to Apple as it would expand the reach of CUDA and make it more of an industry standard.

As far as the CPU cores go, yes, there isn't much to distinguish them there.

There is no way in the foreseeable future that Nvidia will license their GPU designs to anybody.

The only way you'll see Nvidia IP on an Apple box is if Nvidia-made chips are in there, but Nvidia will require buy in on the rest of their software stack. But Apple won't want to cede that much control of their platform to Nvidia.

Nvidia already had tremendous reach, they don't need Apple.

Re: Discussions with Apple regarding license agreement

#200

Post by eridius » Wed, Apr 05, 2017, 12:46 AM UTC

throwaway2048 wrote: post #194

scarface74 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In theory yes, but just to take one well known example, the HeartBleed SSL bug was introduced in 2012 but wasn't found until 2014.

At least it can be patched, if the equivilent bug occured in a closed source arm SoC driver, it would NEVER be patched.

Why wouldn't it be? If a vendor doesn't patch their drivers to fix security issues, people will stop using their products.