4 ms·

what does open source mean in this context?

• justincormack 8y ago
  The article just says the most recent 32 and 64 bit instruction sets will be open. No mention of open core designs (there are many old versions of MIPS, it has been very fragmented, so excluding these makes sense to get some commonality).
  • jordigh 8y ago
    And again, what does it mean for the instruction set to be open? Does that mean that they are releasing circuit schematics and hardware documentation? Surely it means more than releasing documentation for the instruction set like we have for Intel chips.
    • orbifold 8y ago
      It means that you are allowed to design/produce a chip using this instruction set without getting sued.
      • jordigh 8y ago
        Just that? With no extra help from them? No schematics or diagrams or documentation? Do you still have to reverse-engineer their work? Did AMD have to get permission from Intel to implement the i386 instruction set?
        • deleted 8y ago
          [deleted]
        • otterlicious 8y ago
          Did AMD have to get permission from Intel to implement the i386 instruction set? Yup, and Intel needed permission from AMD to implement the x86_64 instruction set. https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-and-amd-a-long-history-in-court/ https://www.cnet.com/news/intel-and-amd-a-long-history-in-co...
          • jolmg 8y ago
            What about emulators? Did bochs and qemu need to get permission? I'm not really understanding the legal basis here. Did these companies get patents for the instruction sets? Since instruction sets are really like APIs, can people get patents for APIs?
        • orbifold 8y ago
          In the case of ARM you actually have to pay them extra for the privilege to implement your own architecture and there is no guarantee that they will allow you to do it. Furthermore you have to prove to them using their test suite that your implementation is compliant.