7 ms·

Even though it isn't GPL anymore, how exactly would it kill all hope?

nickpsecurity 11y ago
How much do you see going on in GPL'd hardware despite tools and motivation being available going back decades? Almost nothing. Takes expensive tools, limited expertise, expensive masks for prototyping... all sorts of expenses that mean it virtually doesn't happen unless cost can be recovered. Stuff is so outrageously expensive and difficult at better nodes that re-using proven (costly) I.P. is the norm. Hence, you're going to need something that integrates with proprietary if you want them to build on it. There's still the possibility of a LGPL-style thing where at least re-synthesized or optimized versions of the open-source part must be re-released. However, forcing that for I.P. it integrates with would kill adoption by any provider unless they like operating at six to eight digit losses. Annually.
- chei0aiV 11y ago
  How does the GPL prevent those costs from being recovered?
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    By allowing anyone to knock off the chip without paying back the R&D. There's already a huge market of counterfeits and clones coming out of China for most things you can think of. It's even easier without reverse engineering: hand design to a fab, individual or MPW, then package and sell the chips. Very little of the price of chips you buy is the material or packaging costs. It's mostly R&D recoup, marketing, administrative, and profit. Most of these companies get all that straight through sales of the chips. Eliminate everything but a tiny margin over physical costs and whats left for further development?
    - krupan 11y ago
      "Very little of the price of chips you buy is the material or packaging costs." Are you sure about that? How much markup over material costs is there on most chips?
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I'm not sure on most chips. I do know if you look up MOSIS, etc prices you'll find that most of the cost of the prototyping run is the masks. The masks start at tens of thousands then just go up from there. High-end nodes are in millions to tens of millions. Every prototype run of your chip takes a new mask. Hence, all the money spent on proprietary tooling to reduce odds of digital or physical defects. Many ASIC's still need respins. Then, there's 3rd party stuff like I/O packages. Now, compared to that, the silicon wafer might cost a few grand with packaging (not volume) costing $10-20 a unit. For any OSS project, dare I say most of the cost will be in the first paragraph and recouping it will take significant unit prices. How significant depends on what's being sold and at what volume. A PIC or AVR clone at modest volume will be cheaper than an Oracle T2 clone at low volume. Hope that helps.
      - analognoise 11y ago
        100% sure - once you have the masks, pumping out chips is cheap, if you do it in volume. http://www.adapteva.com/andreas-blog/semiconductor-economics-101/ http://www.adapteva.com/andreas-blog/semiconductor-economics...
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Key quotes: "Super complex SOC platforms like Apple’s Ax family or the IBM Cell very likely exceeded $1B in total development costs and involved thousands of engineers in aggregate." "Meanwhile relatively simple SOCs like the Epiphany family of chips were designed for less than $3M over the span of 3 years.[1,2]" And Adapteva did such a good job being cheaper than average they wrote a [different] blog post about how they went about it. So, the low end was $3 million over 3 years while users wanting to ditch proprietary are asking for price/performance/watts closer to the above quote that cost $1 billion. Hence, my prediction it will take millions to tens of millions to make something acceptable. Also, me pushing Cavium's model of RISC multicore + HW accelerators for common things. I think it will help by taking load (& optimization) off the main CPU's. Now, people doing analog stuff have it a lot easier given even 350nm is often good for that. That stuff can get really cheap: http://www.planetanalog.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id=559519 http://www.planetanalog.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id...
- colejohnson66 11y ago
  How does the GPL prevent them from making money? Sure, I have essentially the source code of someone's processor, but unless I have millions of dollars to fabricate a chip, the source's only use is to learn how things work. Intel, if they wanted to, could release the source code of their microcode for their processors under the GPLv2 and not provide the signing certificate (like TiVo did), and all people would be able to do with it is study it. What am I gonna do with the source code of a processor? Build an emulator? I already have the instruction manual...
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    Main reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873839 Microcode is a separate issue that's debateable. Their CPU hardware, patents, logistics, ecosystem, and branding are real source of revenue. Microcode release might nit hurt them. However, it might contain trade secret methods for utilizing hardware in a clever way that could give competition (mainly startups) an edge. Biggest players, esp AMD, probably already RE'd it. That said, Im for opening up microcode and even push for microcoded RISC-V. The reason is you can do all kinds of stuff from optimizing algorithms to atomic functions. There were also HLL-to-microcode compilers in the past to make it easier. Look up PALcode on Alpha ISA if you want a nice hybrid, too.
    - userbinator 11y ago
      That said, Im for opening up microcode and even push for microcoded RISC-V. You mean a CISC-V? ;-)
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Lol. Clever. I'll keep it Microcoded RISC-V until people start doing something bloated like emulating x86 in it. ;) cough Loongson people cough
  - marcoperaza 11y ago
    Intel has competitors. Why would Intel want to provide its competitors with what must be, at the very least, tens of millions of dollars worth of work?
krupan 11y ago
How does the GPL apply to hardware? Let's say I take some GPL'ed verilog code, modify it a bit, build a chip out of it and sell the chip. Am I required to provide the verilog "source" for my chip? I guess if the chip counts as "object code" in GPL lingo then the answer is yes. There's a lot more than just the verilog code that goes into building a chip though. How is the physical layout, for example, handled? Is that considered part of the "corresponding source" in GPL lingo?
- chei0aiV 11y ago
  Copyright doesn't apply to physical hardware but it probably applies to hardware designs. There are various laws protecting ICs but I'm not sure they allow for copyleft-like hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout_design_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout_desi...
- jeffbush 11y ago
  I found an interesting and detailed legal analysis of that. It sounds like the answer isn't black and white: http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v25/25HarvJLTech131.pdf http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v25/25HarvJLTech131...
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  I was hoping someone jumped in for context. The other two commenters provide that. Now, in that context, let's just say that the ASIC ecosystem with companies sitting on hundreds of millions to billions in I.P. aren't about to (a) integrate a GPL component or (b) let their stuff be used in a GPL component if there's even the slightest chance it causes legal risk. That's all the good ones. The only exception I know (and promote) was Aeroflex Gaisler putting an ASIC-proven CPU and peripheral IP in a GPL release. That people did nothing with. (sighs) Even he's not doing GPL for new stuff IIRC. The rest continue licensing on a per-producer basis... revenue which GPL would negate. So, it's just incentives. The positive incentive is licensing, which they're doing. The negative incentives are anything risking their I.P., which GPL does. It's a double whammy against GPL'd or even free HW from existing ecosystem.

How much do you see going on in GPL'd hardware despite tools and motivation being available going back decades? Almost nothing. Takes expensive tools, limited expertise, expensive masks for prototyping... all sorts of expenses that mean it virtually doesn't happen unless cost can be recovered. Stuff is so outrageously expensive and difficult at better nodes that re-using proven (costly) I.P. is the norm. Hence, you're going to need something that integrates with proprietary if you want them to build on it. There's still the possibility of a LGPL-style thing where at least re-synthesized or optimized versions of the open-source part must be re-released. However, forcing that for I.P. it integrates with would kill adoption by any provider unless they like operating at six to eight digit losses. Annually.

chei0aiV 11y ago
How does the GPL prevent those costs from being recovered?
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  By allowing anyone to knock off the chip without paying back the R&D. There's already a huge market of counterfeits and clones coming out of China for most things you can think of. It's even easier without reverse engineering: hand design to a fab, individual or MPW, then package and sell the chips. Very little of the price of chips you buy is the material or packaging costs. It's mostly R&D recoup, marketing, administrative, and profit. Most of these companies get all that straight through sales of the chips. Eliminate everything but a tiny margin over physical costs and whats left for further development?
  - krupan 11y ago
    "Very little of the price of chips you buy is the material or packaging costs." Are you sure about that? How much markup over material costs is there on most chips?
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      I'm not sure on most chips. I do know if you look up MOSIS, etc prices you'll find that most of the cost of the prototyping run is the masks. The masks start at tens of thousands then just go up from there. High-end nodes are in millions to tens of millions. Every prototype run of your chip takes a new mask. Hence, all the money spent on proprietary tooling to reduce odds of digital or physical defects. Many ASIC's still need respins. Then, there's 3rd party stuff like I/O packages. Now, compared to that, the silicon wafer might cost a few grand with packaging (not volume) costing $10-20 a unit. For any OSS project, dare I say most of the cost will be in the first paragraph and recouping it will take significant unit prices. How significant depends on what's being sold and at what volume. A PIC or AVR clone at modest volume will be cheaper than an Oracle T2 clone at low volume. Hope that helps.
    - analognoise 11y ago
      100% sure - once you have the masks, pumping out chips is cheap, if you do it in volume. http://www.adapteva.com/andreas-blog/semiconductor-economics-101/ http://www.adapteva.com/andreas-blog/semiconductor-economics...
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Key quotes: "Super complex SOC platforms like Apple’s Ax family or the IBM Cell very likely exceeded $1B in total development costs and involved thousands of engineers in aggregate." "Meanwhile relatively simple SOCs like the Epiphany family of chips were designed for less than $3M over the span of 3 years.[1,2]" And Adapteva did such a good job being cheaper than average they wrote a [different] blog post about how they went about it. So, the low end was $3 million over 3 years while users wanting to ditch proprietary are asking for price/performance/watts closer to the above quote that cost $1 billion. Hence, my prediction it will take millions to tens of millions to make something acceptable. Also, me pushing Cavium's model of RISC multicore + HW accelerators for common things. I think it will help by taking load (& optimization) off the main CPU's. Now, people doing analog stuff have it a lot easier given even 350nm is often good for that. That stuff can get really cheap: http://www.planetanalog.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id=559519 http://www.planetanalog.com/author.asp?section_id=526&doc_id...
colejohnson66 11y ago
How does the GPL prevent them from making money? Sure, I have essentially the source code of someone's processor, but unless I have millions of dollars to fabricate a chip, the source's only use is to learn how things work. Intel, if they wanted to, could release the source code of their microcode for their processors under the GPLv2 and not provide the signing certificate (like TiVo did), and all people would be able to do with it is study it. What am I gonna do with the source code of a processor? Build an emulator? I already have the instruction manual...
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Main reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10873839 Microcode is a separate issue that's debateable. Their CPU hardware, patents, logistics, ecosystem, and branding are real source of revenue. Microcode release might nit hurt them. However, it might contain trade secret methods for utilizing hardware in a clever way that could give competition (mainly startups) an edge. Biggest players, esp AMD, probably already RE'd it. That said, Im for opening up microcode and even push for microcoded RISC-V. The reason is you can do all kinds of stuff from optimizing algorithms to atomic functions. There were also HLL-to-microcode compilers in the past to make it easier. Look up PALcode on Alpha ISA if you want a nice hybrid, too.
  - userbinator 11y ago
    That said, Im for opening up microcode and even push for microcoded RISC-V. You mean a CISC-V? ;-)
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      Lol. Clever. I'll keep it Microcoded RISC-V until people start doing something bloated like emulating x86 in it. ;) cough Loongson people cough
- marcoperaza 11y ago
  Intel has competitors. Why would Intel want to provide its competitors with what must be, at the very least, tens of millions of dollars worth of work?

krupan 11y ago

How does the GPL apply to hardware? Let's say I take some GPL'ed verilog code, modify it a bit, build a chip out of it and sell the chip. Am I required to provide the verilog "source" for my chip? I guess if the chip counts as "object code" in GPL lingo then the answer is yes. There's a lot more than just the verilog code that goes into building a chip though. How is the physical layout, for example, handled? Is that considered part of the "corresponding source" in GPL lingo?

chei0aiV 11y ago
Copyright doesn't apply to physical hardware but it probably applies to hardware designs. There are various laws protecting ICs but I'm not sure they allow for copyleft-like hacks. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout_design_protection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integrated_circuit_layout_desi...
jeffbush 11y ago
I found an interesting and detailed legal analysis of that. It sounds like the answer isn't black and white: http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v25/25HarvJLTech131.pdf http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v25/25HarvJLTech131...
nickpsecurity 11y ago
I was hoping someone jumped in for context. The other two commenters provide that. Now, in that context, let's just say that the ASIC ecosystem with companies sitting on hundreds of millions to billions in I.P. aren't about to (a) integrate a GPL component or (b) let their stuff be used in a GPL component if there's even the slightest chance it causes legal risk. That's all the good ones. The only exception I know (and promote) was Aeroflex Gaisler putting an ASIC-proven CPU and peripheral IP in a GPL release. That people did nothing with. (sighs) Even he's not doing GPL for new stuff IIRC. The rest continue licensing on a per-producer basis... revenue which GPL would negate. So, it's just incentives. The positive incentive is licensing, which they're doing. The negative incentives are anything risking their I.P., which GPL does. It's a double whammy against GPL'd or even free HW from existing ecosystem.