4 ms·

Yea, I know the history. The point being that Intel buying say Compaq would obviously allow them to claim Compaq's profits instead, and maybe eventually driving

by yuhong 11y ago

Yea, I know the history. The point being that Intel buying say Compaq would obviously allow them to claim Compaq's profits instead, and maybe eventually driving all other PC makers out of business (by the low margins) instead of making the same undifferentiable "beige boxes".

nickpsecurity 11y ago
I was thinking he meant buying x86 competitors or burying them via patents. Intel both patents and buys patents on plenty of CPU-related tech, esp for x86 compatibility. Alpha and Transmeta CPU's come to mind immediately. Things just kept disappearing until we were down to basically three companies: Intel, AMD, and VIA. AMD had to pay Intel for I.P. with VIA being a niche player running losses despite some good tech. So, I.P. control from purchases or threats could keep Intel on top of competition for a long time. Worst case was they end up in an oligopoly position where they can still pull huge profits.
- _yosefk 11y ago
  Everyone else (ARM etc.) has a monopoly on the ISA or they don't even publish it (NVIDIA etc.) Intel actually makes perhaps the most open commercially significant platform.
  - makomk 11y ago
    Not really. Unlike Intel, ARM licenses their ISA to anyone who's willing to pay. Every single modern iPhone has an entirely in-house Apple implementation of the ARM ISA and they're definitely not the only ones
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    That's far from true. We've been able to license ARM and MIPS ISA's plus implementations for a long time. They and Intel defend theirs with patents. SPARC, the most open of old ones, could be used without license fees or patent risk at all. You just had to make it ISA compatible then pay a $99 fee. Gaisler has a SPARC CPU and pile of SOC HW under GPL that ASIC proven even on radhard, space applications. Enterprise versions selling for a premium exist from Oracle and Fujitsu. I'd say Intel is not that open at all given the secrets remaining, patent protections, and lack of competition. POWER is slightly more open with PowerPC embedded implementations. ARM and MIPS are more open since they actively license implementations. The most open is SPARC ISA hands down given every aspect is usable with source available for several CPU's.
    - tw04 11y ago
      POWER is FAR more open than Intel. You can actively license it just the same as ARM (not to say the licensing terms are the same, but the concept is). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        I put it between Intel and ARM because I still didnt know what I got at what price after reading OpenPOWER website. I have that data for ARM, MIPS, and SPARC. So, what's an OpenPOWER license cost, the royalties if any, and does that come with ASIC-ready implementation?
    - _yosefk 11y ago
      Well, currently shipped SPARC's volumes are relatively low AFAIK, and ARM and MIPS (now IMG) are in fact monopolies, they just happen to license the ISA & the implementation because they choose to do this. Intel does not choose to let AMD and VIA ship x86 CPUs and in this sense it's less of a monopoly. Of course you could argue that ARM is more open than x86 in some other significant sense; here I think that the PC is a more open platform than perhaps any widely shipped ARM-based system, in terms of the variety of available operating systems and software and the ease of developing such software, especially if said software is to have reasonably wide applicability and long shelf life, and also in terms of the degree of control that any single entity has over the platform. In general I think that the "vertical disintegration" where you have fabs which are open to everyone making chips integrating cheap IPs, instead of companies with their own fabs, has destroyed "openness" - it used to be the case that you knew exactly what the hardware was doing, and it is now the case that you need to sign a draconian NDA to program most of the components in most chips, and this option is only available to select "partners." x86 is an older product and hence more open than most successful newer products; it was perhaps less open than its competitors at the time, which in part explains why it was more successful than those competitors... (A closed platform is a kind of a high-risk, high-reward game.)
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago

by yuhong 11y ago

nickpsecurity 11y ago

I was thinking he meant buying x86 competitors or burying them via patents. Intel both patents and buys patents on plenty of CPU-related tech, esp for x86 compatibility. Alpha and Transmeta CPU's come to mind immediately. Things just kept disappearing until we were down to basically three companies: Intel, AMD, and VIA. AMD had to pay Intel for I.P. with VIA being a niche player running losses despite some good tech. So, I.P. control from purchases or threats could keep Intel on top of competition for a long time. Worst case was they end up in an oligopoly position where they can still pull huge profits.

_yosefk 11y ago
Everyone else (ARM etc.) has a monopoly on the ISA or they don't even publish it (NVIDIA etc.) Intel actually makes perhaps the most open commercially significant platform.
- makomk 11y ago
  Not really. Unlike Intel, ARM licenses their ISA to anyone who's willing to pay. Every single modern iPhone has an entirely in-house Apple implementation of the ARM ISA and they're definitely not the only ones
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  That's far from true. We've been able to license ARM and MIPS ISA's plus implementations for a long time. They and Intel defend theirs with patents. SPARC, the most open of old ones, could be used without license fees or patent risk at all. You just had to make it ISA compatible then pay a $99 fee. Gaisler has a SPARC CPU and pile of SOC HW under GPL that ASIC proven even on radhard, space applications. Enterprise versions selling for a premium exist from Oracle and Fujitsu. I'd say Intel is not that open at all given the secrets remaining, patent protections, and lack of competition. POWER is slightly more open with PowerPC embedded implementations. ARM and MIPS are more open since they actively license implementations. The most open is SPARC ISA hands down given every aspect is usable with source available for several CPU's.
  - tw04 11y ago
    POWER is FAR more open than Intel. You can actively license it just the same as ARM (not to say the licensing terms are the same, but the concept is). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenPOWER_Foundation
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      I put it between Intel and ARM because I still didnt know what I got at what price after reading OpenPOWER website. I have that data for ARM, MIPS, and SPARC. So, what's an OpenPOWER license cost, the royalties if any, and does that come with ASIC-ready implementation?
  - _yosefk 11y ago
    Well, currently shipped SPARC's volumes are relatively low AFAIK, and ARM and MIPS (now IMG) are in fact monopolies, they just happen to license the ISA & the implementation because they choose to do this. Intel does not choose to let AMD and VIA ship x86 CPUs and in this sense it's less of a monopoly. Of course you could argue that ARM is more open than x86 in some other significant sense; here I think that the PC is a more open platform than perhaps any widely shipped ARM-based system, in terms of the variety of available operating systems and software and the ease of developing such software, especially if said software is to have reasonably wide applicability and long shelf life, and also in terms of the degree of control that any single entity has over the platform. In general I think that the "vertical disintegration" where you have fabs which are open to everyone making chips integrating cheap IPs, instead of companies with their own fabs, has destroyed "openness" - it used to be the case that you knew exactly what the hardware was doing, and it is now the case that you need to sign a draconian NDA to program most of the components in most chips, and this option is only available to select "partners." x86 is an older product and hence more open than most successful newer products; it was perhaps less open than its competitors at the time, which in part explains why it was more successful than those competitors... (A closed platform is a kind of a high-risk, high-reward game.)
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago