3 ms·
Can't they rename it to ABX and switch things here and there? Or get someone to do clean room implementation of ISA specification? You can't patent an API.
by varispeed 6y ago
Can't they rename it to ABX and switch things here and there? Or get someone to do clean room implementation of ISA specification? You can't patent an API.
- mhh__ 6y agoThe patents aren't on the API but what the API does. Like it or not they are patented https://patents.google.com/patent/US7499962 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7499962 (FMA, for example)
- xoa 6y ago>Like it or not they are patented https://patents.google.com/patent/US7499962 https://patents.google.com/patent/US7499962 (FMA, for example) Yeah, and AVX is also relatively new, intro'd in 2008 and first shipped in a chip in 2011. AVX2 wasn't until 2013. So even with R&D and patents happening years beforehand it'll still be a good long while before they expire (that FMA example being a case in point, not until end of 2026). Granted in Apple's specific case that's actually not a bad thing. Precisely because AVX is so new, many Macs supported up until the last version or two of macOS didn't have it. So AVX isn't at all a widely expected dependency for the kind of older software that may never get an ARM port and in turn most needs Rosetta 2.
- Const-me 6y agoIf FMA is patented, how comes ARM has equivalent instructions, called MLA? And GPUs have FMA as well.