5 ms·

While it is true that a lot of software is available immediately, there is also software which is not. For example PC games are nearly always restricted to x86.

by madez 9y ago

While it is true that a lot of software is available immediately, there is also software which is not. For example PC games are nearly always restricted to x86. Performance of common non-x86 hardware might not be enough to run the latest, demanding games, but. I don't see why games like Factorio, Stardew Valley, Lethal League, Don't Starve or Bastion couldn't run on less powerful hardware. Great games do not require demanding hardware. One problem is that games are usually closed source and are rarely freed. Another problem is that there are no open graphics driver for common single board computers. The latter problem is being worked on by the amazing Mesa project. What can be done about the former? I worry that games will be abandoned and never be freed. The copyright of movies eventually expires and they become a common good. What about closed binaries compiled for obsolete hardware and software?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
cyphar 9y ago
There are quite a few communities around creating free engines for games, such as OpenMW[1] (there are plenty more). With a free engine all of those problems can be resolved. As for movie copyright, this is the true purpose of DRM -- to try to make copyright eternal by locking away the content behind strong-enough encryption and then licensing the keys. And of course, breaking DRM (even if the content itself is no longer protected by copyright) is a felony. [1]: https://openmw.org/en/ https://openmw.org/en/
- madez 9y ago
  Wow. So DRM is a technical hack of copyright law. Is there any other way than adjusting the law to enforce release?
zanny 9y ago
This is going to be one of the most embarassing chapters of world history in a few centuries. "Oh yeah, all those old folk at the turn of the milennia had this thing called copyright and all their code was proprietary so we no longer can run or use 99% of software written between 1970 and 20XX". "And there are these files where it was a felony to be able to access them!" Wow those guys were sure dumb. Now all our information is open and shared and makes the world a better place and anyone can use it or improve it! All I can is lets hope its only until a 20XX that we get over the facade of IP being worth the cost.
- squarefoot 9y ago
  "This is going to be one of the most embarassing chapters of world history in a few centuries." And it won't be that far from archaeologists being prevented to decipher any ancient language. If today's copyright laws existed in historic times we wouldn't have precious documents copied by monks nor the Rosetta Stone. It's just dumb crazy how this works.
- pkaye 9y ago
  Is having copyright a concern? Even Linux has a copyright. And all GNU software. Do you want all forms of copyright not to exist?
  - zanny 9y ago
    I am a general IP abolitionist, but the real solution to the problem of source code lost forever is in the domain of right to repair. Since the advent of software the right to repair, which used to be respected for almost anything you could buy, has been completely abandoned. Requiring access to the sources to modify code you buy (or in a post-IP world, receive in binary form) would go a long way to stopping the software culture death of source code never being released and rotting on hard drives until its irretrievable. The problem is the current dominant culture is either completely apathetic or actually hostile to right to repair for software. Its why I say "I hope its only 20XX" because I don't see the path to fixing that mindset. That being said, it is important to distinguish that while I spoke about how future historians will see both draconian IP and the lack of right to repair as barbaric and antiquated, they are distinct but related concepts.
  - cjbprime 9y ago
    GNU software's clearly using copyright as a hack ("copyleft") to achieve its actual goal of a non-copyright world. So it shouldn't be surprising that GNU supporters would prefer copyright not to exist.
    - phkahler 9y ago
      >> So it shouldn't be surprising that GNU supporters would prefer copyright not to exist. Not so sure. That would effectively make all open source code fall under the equivalent of a BSD or MIT license, which the GPL clearly is not. GPL want's the essential freedoms to apply to all derivative works as well as the original. Neither BSD, MIT, or complete lack of copyright can make that happen.
imtringued 9y ago
I have switched to opensource alternatives primarily because of the freedom to recompile it to different architectures. >Another problem is that there are no open graphics driver for common single board computers. The latter problem is being worked on by the amazing Mesa project. What can be done about the former? Can you tell me more about this?
- madez 9y ago
  I phrased it incorrectly. The work is not done necessarily by the mesa project, but within its framework. The degree of activity of each project varies. Mali 400 (Allwinner A20) https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima Adreno 2xx, 3xx, 4xx https://github.com/freedreno https://github.com/freedreno https://mesamatrix.net/ https://mesamatrix.net/ VC4 (Raspberry Pi) https://github.com/anholt/mesa/wiki/VC4 https://github.com/anholt/mesa/wiki/VC4 If the VC4 or Mali driver mature, then that'd be a huge step forward.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    I've said it before, but I'd like to see LLVMpipe get a risc-v back end. And when the vector extensions are ready, support for that. This way all the SoC vendors should be able to implement basic frame buffer support with HDMI and use extra risc-v cores in place of a GPU. It wouldn't be fast, but it should be enough for things like a composited desktop and would provide minimal OpenGL support. Also, some guys have done a 500 core risc-v chip so maybe it doesn't have to be a poor performer. Intel got decent performance from Larabee right? edit: the point is that many companies don't have any graphics IP, so this would give them a compromise.
    - jabl 9y ago
      Isn't a contemporary nvidia GPU essentially a vector machine with predication and scatter/gather? In CUDA it's just hidden behind the "SIMT" programming model. If so, there's no fundamental reason why you couldn't make a decent GPU based on risc-v + the vector extension. Just make the cores themselves relatively modest, no reason to waste die area on OoO logic, and have lots of hardware threads to drive memory parallelism. Oh, and gobs of memory BW. Though IIRC Intel had to have some fixed function blocks, and IIRC other GPU's also have some of them left. I also recall reading about Larrabee suffering from a lot of internal BW being wasted on cache coherency traffic, but with risc-V having a weaker memory consistency model perhaps that would be less of a problem for a hypothetical "risc-v gpu"?
ekianjo 9y ago
I know its not ideal but x86 can run on arm via a x86 processor emulator, and then WINE to convert windows systems calls and directx calls to Linux and OpenGL. So nothing will really be lost as long as WINE lives on as a project.
- monocasa 9y ago
  One issue is that RISC-V has a weaker memory model than x86, so even qemu-user wouldn't work unless single threaded or pinned to one core.

by madez 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

cyphar 9y ago

There are quite a few communities around creating free engines for games, such as OpenMW[1] (there are plenty more). With a free engine all of those problems can be resolved. As for movie copyright, this is the true purpose of DRM -- to try to make copyright eternal by locking away the content behind strong-enough encryption and then licensing the keys. And of course, breaking DRM (even if the content itself is no longer protected by copyright) is a felony. [1]: https://openmw.org/en/ https://openmw.org/en/

madez 9y ago
Wow. So DRM is a technical hack of copyright law. Is there any other way than adjusting the law to enforce release?

zanny 9y ago

This is going to be one of the most embarassing chapters of world history in a few centuries. "Oh yeah, all those old folk at the turn of the milennia had this thing called copyright and all their code was proprietary so we no longer can run or use 99% of software written between 1970 and 20XX". "And there are these files where it was a felony to be able to access them!" Wow those guys were sure dumb. Now all our information is open and shared and makes the world a better place and anyone can use it or improve it! All I can is lets hope its only until a 20XX that we get over the facade of IP being worth the cost.

squarefoot 9y ago
"This is going to be one of the most embarassing chapters of world history in a few centuries." And it won't be that far from archaeologists being prevented to decipher any ancient language. If today's copyright laws existed in historic times we wouldn't have precious documents copied by monks nor the Rosetta Stone. It's just dumb crazy how this works.
pkaye 9y ago
Is having copyright a concern? Even Linux has a copyright. And all GNU software. Do you want all forms of copyright not to exist?
- zanny 9y ago
  I am a general IP abolitionist, but the real solution to the problem of source code lost forever is in the domain of right to repair. Since the advent of software the right to repair, which used to be respected for almost anything you could buy, has been completely abandoned. Requiring access to the sources to modify code you buy (or in a post-IP world, receive in binary form) would go a long way to stopping the software culture death of source code never being released and rotting on hard drives until its irretrievable. The problem is the current dominant culture is either completely apathetic or actually hostile to right to repair for software. Its why I say "I hope its only 20XX" because I don't see the path to fixing that mindset. That being said, it is important to distinguish that while I spoke about how future historians will see both draconian IP and the lack of right to repair as barbaric and antiquated, they are distinct but related concepts.
- cjbprime 9y ago
  GNU software's clearly using copyright as a hack ("copyleft") to achieve its actual goal of a non-copyright world. So it shouldn't be surprising that GNU supporters would prefer copyright not to exist.
  - phkahler 9y ago
    >> So it shouldn't be surprising that GNU supporters would prefer copyright not to exist. Not so sure. That would effectively make all open source code fall under the equivalent of a BSD or MIT license, which the GPL clearly is not. GPL want's the essential freedoms to apply to all derivative works as well as the original. Neither BSD, MIT, or complete lack of copyright can make that happen.

imtringued 9y ago

I have switched to opensource alternatives primarily because of the freedom to recompile it to different architectures. >Another problem is that there are no open graphics driver for common single board computers. The latter problem is being worked on by the amazing Mesa project. What can be done about the former? Can you tell me more about this?

madez 9y ago
I phrased it incorrectly. The work is not done necessarily by the mesa project, but within its framework. The degree of activity of each project varies. Mali 400 (Allwinner A20) https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima https://github.com/yuq/mesa-lima Adreno 2xx, 3xx, 4xx https://github.com/freedreno https://github.com/freedreno https://mesamatrix.net/ https://mesamatrix.net/ VC4 (Raspberry Pi) https://github.com/anholt/mesa/wiki/VC4 https://github.com/anholt/mesa/wiki/VC4 If the VC4 or Mali driver mature, then that'd be a huge step forward.
- phkahler 9y ago
  I've said it before, but I'd like to see LLVMpipe get a risc-v back end. And when the vector extensions are ready, support for that. This way all the SoC vendors should be able to implement basic frame buffer support with HDMI and use extra risc-v cores in place of a GPU. It wouldn't be fast, but it should be enough for things like a composited desktop and would provide minimal OpenGL support. Also, some guys have done a 500 core risc-v chip so maybe it doesn't have to be a poor performer. Intel got decent performance from Larabee right? edit: the point is that many companies don't have any graphics IP, so this would give them a compromise.
  - jabl 9y ago
    Isn't a contemporary nvidia GPU essentially a vector machine with predication and scatter/gather? In CUDA it's just hidden behind the "SIMT" programming model. If so, there's no fundamental reason why you couldn't make a decent GPU based on risc-v + the vector extension. Just make the cores themselves relatively modest, no reason to waste die area on OoO logic, and have lots of hardware threads to drive memory parallelism. Oh, and gobs of memory BW. Though IIRC Intel had to have some fixed function blocks, and IIRC other GPU's also have some of them left. I also recall reading about Larrabee suffering from a lot of internal BW being wasted on cache coherency traffic, but with risc-V having a weaker memory consistency model perhaps that would be less of a problem for a hypothetical "risc-v gpu"?

ekianjo 9y ago

I know its not ideal but x86 can run on arm via a x86 processor emulator, and then WINE to convert windows systems calls and directx calls to Linux and OpenGL. So nothing will really be lost as long as WINE lives on as a project.

monocasa 9y ago
One issue is that RISC-V has a weaker memory model than x86, so even qemu-user wouldn't work unless single threaded or pinned to one core.