6 ms·

This looks like something Intel should be paying good money for, but I feel like they are just going to "embrace" open source and snatch it without giving a pen

This looks like something Intel should be paying good money for, but I feel like they are just going to "embrace" open source and snatch it without giving a penny to the author.

numlock86 6y ago
You make it sound like that's an issue with Intel while the license is to blame.
- krick 6y ago
  So, basically this project is illegal and waiting to be removed from Github then?
  - barkingcat 6y ago
    yes. I am not a lawyer but nvidia's lawyers would be interested I bet.
  - qiqitori 6y ago
    (IANAL.) Without looking into the CUDA licenses (who knows, they might even expressly allow this kind of thing, but seems pretty unlikely to me), I'd expect this to be a case of whether "APIs are copyrightable" or not, same as the famous and sort of still ongoing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... The US courts said "yes" in this case (note: 100% stupid IMO), but I'm not confident that nVidia'd have an easy win if they decided to sue the developer, and I'm also relatively sure they wouldn't send a DMCA request at this stage (and that if they did, their request would probably be reviewed harder than normal).
    - jcranmer 6y ago
      That's not the most accurate summary of Google v Oracle. The case has been tried twice, Google has been found in the clear twice at the district court by the jury, and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has twice overturned the jury result, and the case is now at the Supreme Court awaiting a decision as to whether or not CAFC's decision is off it's rocker. It is not usual for CAFC to hear copyright disputes; that it was appealed to CAFC instead of the 9th Circuit is because there was a patent claim at one point, and CAFC should have followed 9th Circuit precedent on the matter. Google contends that 9th Circuit precedent holds that the API is not copyrightable, which means that CAFC erred in ignoring precedent. Most software companies ultimately agree with Google here, not Oracle: it's telling that most of the amici who side with Oracle are not software companies but media publishers (e.g., MPAA, RIAA).
    - sodality2 6y ago
      That link is missing a trailing period by the way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... Edit: huh? I pasted it in with the period and it gets removed. Do trailing periods get removed because it thinks it's the end of a sentence? Anyway, this redirects to the right URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v_Oracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v_Oracle
      - monocasa 6y ago
        Yeah, HN strips trailing periods for the reason you stated. You can normally get around that by adding a hash/pound sign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_...
    - iforgotpassword 6y ago
      I think you could argue from the interop side which would make such a project legal in Europe. So Intel or AMD could funnel money into this via their European branches or some subsidiary?
    - rectang 6y ago
      > I'm not confident that nVidia'd have an easy win if they decided to sue the developer So long as Nvidia's case doesn't get outright laughed out of court, they can throw money at their legal team until the developer goes bankrupt.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
krick 6y ago
This makes me think, why Intel doesn't actually care? There's a lot of money poured into marketing, and today it's always about "AI-optimized muti-core nano-whateverer GPU", so isn't it obvious making your shitty GPUs compatible with software written for competition's less shitty GPUs is probably even more profitable in the 5-year run than trying to make your GPUs a bit less trash? Yes, Nvidia wouldn't want that, so it won't be easy to make your product CUDA-compatible, but not impossible. Is it illegal for them to do, or what? We all are kind of accustomed to the idea that Intel doesn't care, but why don't they care? It is money laying around waiting to be taken, and they just ignore it.
jcranmer 6y ago
Disclosure: I work at Intel. At one of the internal Q&As, there was a question as to why we didn't just implement CUDA. One of the reasons given was that the lawyers looked at the license of CUDA and decided that Intel could not legally implement CUDA for Intel's GPU devices. I don't know the details, but quite frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Nvidia didn't somehow put a poison pill in there to prevent Intel or AMD from implementing it for their own GPUs (note that AMD also doesn't provide an implementation of CUDA for its own GPUs). Instead, the strategy Intel pursued was to develop a migration tool from CUDA to Sycl: https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/oneapi/components/dpc-compatibility-tool.html https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/o...
- eslaught 6y ago
  AMD implemented HIP, which is nearly CUDA (if not identical). There is an implementation for Intel too though it is third-party: https://github.com/cpc/hipcl https://github.com/cpc/hipcl
  - lumost 6y ago
    The problem here seems to be that everyone kinda wants Nvidia's market capture. Intel didn't contribute to AMD's project - they started their own.
    - stefan_ 6y ago
      And they are all approaching it the wrong way, the typical hubris of a hardware company that thinks they can just have some interns make a software solution for their problem. Here is how you beat the CUDA lock-in: consistently make better performing GPUs so not using them is a liability. Instead buying AMD you not only get a worse GPU but also the intern software solution, and that is just not compelling.
      - tal8d 6y ago
        Or AMD could simply knock off the binary blobs. The DRM excuse has always been weak, because it is a tiny fraction of the total firmware blob - and it'd be easy to make it so that the legally hobbled hardware decoder simply errors out in cases where the end user chooses not to load the DRM blob. Boom, no more dependence on AMD interns. I've been following their commit logs pretty closely for a year now, and I frequently see some amazing accidental admissions about the left hand (software team) not knowing what the right hand (hardware team) is doing. During one very frustrating series of patches it was difficult resisting the impulse to say "Go get your dad."

This looks like something Intel should be paying good money for, but I feel like they are just going to "embrace" open source and snatch it without giving a penny to the author.

numlock86 6y ago

You make it sound like that's an issue with Intel while the license is to blame.

krick 6y ago
So, basically this project is illegal and waiting to be removed from Github then?
- barkingcat 6y ago
  yes. I am not a lawyer but nvidia's lawyers would be interested I bet.
- qiqitori 6y ago
  (IANAL.) Without looking into the CUDA licenses (who knows, they might even expressly allow this kind of thing, but seems pretty unlikely to me), I'd expect this to be a case of whether "APIs are copyrightable" or not, same as the famous and sort of still ongoing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... The US courts said "yes" in this case (note: 100% stupid IMO), but I'm not confident that nVidia'd have an easy win if they decided to sue the developer, and I'm also relatively sure they wouldn't send a DMCA request at this stage (and that if they did, their request would probably be reviewed harder than normal).
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    That's not the most accurate summary of Google v Oracle. The case has been tried twice, Google has been found in the clear twice at the district court by the jury, and the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has twice overturned the jury result, and the case is now at the Supreme Court awaiting a decision as to whether or not CAFC's decision is off it's rocker. It is not usual for CAFC to hear copyright disputes; that it was appealed to CAFC instead of the 9th Circuit is because there was a patent claim at one point, and CAFC should have followed 9th Circuit precedent on the matter. Google contends that 9th Circuit precedent holds that the API is not copyrightable, which means that CAFC erred in ignoring precedent. Most software companies ultimately agree with Google here, not Oracle: it's telling that most of the amici who side with Oracle are not software companies but media publishers (e.g., MPAA, RIAA).
  - sodality2 6y ago
    That link is missing a trailing period by the way https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_.... Edit: huh? I pasted it in with the period and it gets removed. Do trailing periods get removed because it thinks it's the end of a sentence? Anyway, this redirects to the right URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v_Oracle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_v_Oracle
    - monocasa 6y ago
      Yeah, HN strips trailing periods for the reason you stated. You can normally get around that by adding a hash/pound sign. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_...
  - iforgotpassword 6y ago
    I think you could argue from the interop side which would make such a project legal in Europe. So Intel or AMD could funnel money into this via their European branches or some subsidiary?
  - rectang 6y ago
    > I'm not confident that nVidia'd have an easy win if they decided to sue the developer So long as Nvidia's case doesn't get outright laughed out of court, they can throw money at their legal team until the developer goes bankrupt.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

krick 6y ago

This makes me think, why Intel doesn't actually care? There's a lot of money poured into marketing, and today it's always about "AI-optimized muti-core nano-whateverer GPU", so isn't it obvious making your shitty GPUs compatible with software written for competition's less shitty GPUs is probably even more profitable in the 5-year run than trying to make your GPUs a bit less trash? Yes, Nvidia wouldn't want that, so it won't be easy to make your product CUDA-compatible, but not impossible. Is it illegal for them to do, or what? We all are kind of accustomed to the idea that Intel doesn't care, but why don't they care? It is money laying around waiting to be taken, and they just ignore it.

jcranmer 6y ago

Disclosure: I work at Intel. At one of the internal Q&As, there was a question as to why we didn't just implement CUDA. One of the reasons given was that the lawyers looked at the license of CUDA and decided that Intel could not legally implement CUDA for Intel's GPU devices. I don't know the details, but quite frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Nvidia didn't somehow put a poison pill in there to prevent Intel or AMD from implementing it for their own GPUs (note that AMD also doesn't provide an implementation of CUDA for its own GPUs). Instead, the strategy Intel pursued was to develop a migration tool from CUDA to Sycl: https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/oneapi/components/dpc-compatibility-tool.html https://software.intel.com/content/www/us/en/develop/tools/o...

eslaught 6y ago
AMD implemented HIP, which is nearly CUDA (if not identical). There is an implementation for Intel too though it is third-party: https://github.com/cpc/hipcl https://github.com/cpc/hipcl
- lumost 6y ago
  The problem here seems to be that everyone kinda wants Nvidia's market capture. Intel didn't contribute to AMD's project - they started their own.
  - stefan_ 6y ago
    And they are all approaching it the wrong way, the typical hubris of a hardware company that thinks they can just have some interns make a software solution for their problem. Here is how you beat the CUDA lock-in: consistently make better performing GPUs so not using them is a liability. Instead buying AMD you not only get a worse GPU but also the intern software solution, and that is just not compelling.
    - tal8d 6y ago
      Or AMD could simply knock off the binary blobs. The DRM excuse has always been weak, because it is a tiny fraction of the total firmware blob - and it'd be easy to make it so that the legally hobbled hardware decoder simply errors out in cases where the end user chooses not to load the DRM blob. Boom, no more dependence on AMD interns. I've been following their commit logs pretty closely for a year now, and I frequently see some amazing accidental admissions about the left hand (software team) not knowing what the right hand (hardware team) is doing. During one very frustrating series of patches it was difficult resisting the impulse to say "Go get your dad."