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Intel Opens Itanium Specs
Quite a number of people have recognized the power of open source development - Intel definitely has by opening the specs for Itanium. They've got major blueprints up on the Web. Good sign of the success of open development - but I wonder if AMD's resurgence has anything to do with this.
Up until now, Intel was keeping even the databooks on these chips under lock and key. By giving these out now, they're letting anyone who wants to port an OS to their chips a fair chance.
Now, instead of just Windows NT, Solaris and Linux(the three OS's they were supporting) anyone can go do a IA-64 port.
They were being secretive before, claiming that the data contained in those
No, they're not "Open Sourcing" their chip, and I don't really see where *Intel* said that. But they are being Open Source Friendly. Don't flame someone for making a good effort, even if it's not as much as you want.
Saying Intel is "open sourcing" Itantium because they are releasing architecture and programming info is like saying Black and Decker is "open sourcing" their toasters because they posted instructions on how to put the bread in.
At MOST this makes Intel "Open Source friendly", but I would argue that it just makes them pragmatic. How else am I going to create devices and compilers for a platform except if I have the specs? Duh.
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Wow.... I can't believe it! No more mindless bandwagon-jumping from Intel, but some real dedication to the Open Source cause!
I'll tell you what I'm going to do: I've got a few ideas on how to really improve the floating point speed on these guys, so I'm gonna put together a few patches and then whip out a few chips and test 'em and see if they work. I'll submit those to Intel, for next week's CVS snapshot, and then I've got a few tweaks I want to make to the speculative execution. After I submit those patches and get them tested for a while, I'll whip up another batch of chips and put them on my website free for download!
What? I need a multi-billion dollar fab for this?
What are you talking about?
Oh. I see.
Um, anyway... Back to the Linux kernel....
Go look at the intel website link and it will take you about 5 seconds to see that this has nothing to do with open source. No designs have been published, no schematics, not even decent scale picture of the insides.
In fact what has happened is intel has published it's usually array of developer documentation online. This is the same information that has been freely available for all it's over processors. Yes intel has made these freely available online (a good thing), but even this is not new.
What we have here is a case of a journalist slapping the term 'open source' on a news item to get a bit of attention, either that or a journalist who never reads the material, some how 'technical specifications and programmer docs' has become 'blueprints', a bit a leap of imagination if ever I saw one.
This reminds me a lot of that altervista 'open sourceing' which just turned out to be the html code for a search box.
Do I get a free chip if I submit an improvement?
No, you go down to your basement foundry, fire up all the GNU-brand fab equipment you downloaded from the FSF, and you pump out your own Itanium.
The whole idea is ridiculous! This is almost the same kind of idealism that lead the Chinese government during the 'Great Leap Forward' to convince people all across China to build backyard steel foundries. For the more dense idealists in the crowd itching to reply to this comment- no, it didn't work in China.
It's so ludicrous it can't help but make this website look like a bunch of damn fools for even putting up an article about it.