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According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#History), AMD's x86-64 was announced in 1999 and the f

by cesarb 6y ago

According to Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64#History), AMD's x86-64 was announced in 1999 and the full specification was released in 2000. Assuming patents last for 20 years, they should have all expired by now. For SIMD, this includes everything up to SSE2; most software which uses any of the newer SIMD extensions should have a fallback to SSE2, since older CPUs don't have these newer extensions.

ksec 6y ago
AH! Thank You. The timeline make sense. Seems Apple have time this perfectly for their transition. I am now giving them some creditable excuses for the negligence of Mac in the past few years.
- sonotmyname 6y ago
  > Seems Apple have time this perfectly for their transition Important to note that this doesn't really apply to Apple Silicon. Rosetta II isn't X86 emulation, it's a translation layer - big technical difference.
  - tambourine_man 6y ago
    I get the technical difference but not the legal one. Why would one be OK but not the other?
    - temac 6y ago
      Especially since that kind of legal aspect highly depend on how much companies are willing to fight, and the state of mind of the judges. And in a not so distant past, Intel warned MS and PC vendors doing some ARM stuff that it might be willing to fight. As for the state of mind of the judges, it is difficult to predict... But it can be different. Depends on the magic formulas you use for your claims, and whether you are actually permitted to patent software in the first place (with or without other magic formulas usually stating that said software is executed by some hardware). And in places where it is not supposed to be possible to patent software, patent offices are usually nevertheless accepting them, because it gives them money so why not? :P TLDR it is a mess. Depends on an insane nmuber of contextual factors, and as unpredictable as the outcome of Oracle vs. Google before the verdict. Or maybe even more unpredictable.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Rosetta runs emulation, it's just that part of it is a ahead-of-time translator.
    - dagmx 6y ago
      AFAIK even the dynamic parts are translating whole code pages rather than emulating them. https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/11/rosetta-2-translation/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/11/rosetta-2-translation/

by cesarb 6y ago

ksec 6y ago

AH! Thank You. The timeline make sense. Seems Apple have time this perfectly for their transition. I am now giving them some creditable excuses for the negligence of Mac in the past few years.

sonotmyname 6y ago
> Seems Apple have time this perfectly for their transition Important to note that this doesn't really apply to Apple Silicon. Rosetta II isn't X86 emulation, it's a translation layer - big technical difference.
- tambourine_man 6y ago
  I get the technical difference but not the legal one. Why would one be OK but not the other?
  - temac 6y ago
    Especially since that kind of legal aspect highly depend on how much companies are willing to fight, and the state of mind of the judges. And in a not so distant past, Intel warned MS and PC vendors doing some ARM stuff that it might be willing to fight. As for the state of mind of the judges, it is difficult to predict... But it can be different. Depends on the magic formulas you use for your claims, and whether you are actually permitted to patent software in the first place (with or without other magic formulas usually stating that said software is executed by some hardware). And in places where it is not supposed to be possible to patent software, patent offices are usually nevertheless accepting them, because it gives them money so why not? :P TLDR it is a mess. Depends on an insane nmuber of contextual factors, and as unpredictable as the outcome of Oracle vs. Google before the verdict. Or maybe even more unpredictable.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Rosetta runs emulation, it's just that part of it is a ahead-of-time translator.
  - dagmx 6y ago
    AFAIK even the dynamic parts are translating whole code pages rather than emulating them. https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/11/rosetta-2-translation/ https://www.infoq.com/news/2020/11/rosetta-2-translation/