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Clash of the Titans Over USB 3.0 Specification Process
Ian Lamont writes "Nvidia and other chip designers are accusing Intel of 'illegally restraining trade' in a dispute over the USB 3.0 specification. The dispute has prompted Nvidia, AMD, Via, and SiS to establish a rival standard for the USB 3.0 host controller. An Intel spokesman denies the company is making the USB specification, or that USB 3.0 'borrows technology heavily' from the PCI Special Interests group. He does, however, say that Intel won't release an unfinished Intel host controller spec until it's ready, as it would lead to incompatible hardware."
Ever the more reason to never give up Firewire until they pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
So will this mean in the end we will have 2 competing USB standards? USB-Intel and USB-AMD? I can only hope that one will get picked over the other before it appears in most products because after the whole HD-DVD and Blu-Ray thing it would be an absolute pain to get a computer with USB-Intel in it when all the products will be USB-AMD.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
How is this article, published online by an employee of a company supported by Intel, not biased in its analysis of the situation?
As we have seen with wireless networking gear in the past companies are all too eager to screw the consumer with incompatibilities because of pre-spec products being released. If Intel was doing this I would say good for them, its rare a company would actively try to protect the consumer from these vultures.
This is a replay of the OHCI/UHCI host controller interface standards of original USB.
This does NOT at all effect users, only driver writers.
What is being forked is the USB driver interface, and does not effect device compatibility at all.
As mentioned above, there were two driver interfaces for the original USB standard, and the only people who knew were driver writers and nerds compiling their own custom kernel.
This is blown way out of proportion, and doesn't effect 99.999% of us. Nothing to see here, move along....
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Once again, we'll have the VHS version and the Betamax version.
One will win. Avoid whichever one Sony gets behind.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
I agree... the battle just heating up, how can you be biased? Not until there are two definitive sides can you get behind one or the other.
... even if some of them have been OOXML'd lately. (that's not even valid in Roman Numerals)
This does point out one thing, there is a lot to be said for open standards
No matter which version is better technically, if there is one that is not backwards compatible they will have an uphill slog trying to sell it. Yeah, I know, CDs were not backwards compatible with floppy drives, but this is a bit different. If the connector is the same, it MUST be compatible or my aunt nelly will kill someone.
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This isn't about competing USB 3 standards -- the spec is being designed by a group, and there is only one. This is about the design of the hardware used to implement a host controller that can comply with the spec. This is something that any company can develop if they want to, but since Intel is going to license their design of the host controller for free, most companies will just wait for that design and use it to implement USB 3.
..wayne..
That is generally the purpose of a pop culture reference.
Anonymous Coward
The two sides I see here are not Specification A and Specification B but not producing an open standard and producing an open standard.
"there is a lot to be said for open standards"... Yes, Something indeed. Who lead the CD revolution? Sony. Who developed the standard? Sony (and Phillips). They released the standard after they had working products to sell. The "standard" still then cost a lot of money to even look at. (See the wikipedia article on the Red Book standard).
My Point (finally?): Giving the excuse of "we don't want to release it early because then there will be incompatibility issues" (paraphrase) is complete bunk. No company in their right mind would implement a pre-standardized hardware specification (and sink mucho dinero into the manufacturing costs of just the parts to make the parts). And if they do, they aren't AMD/nVidia or Intel. [1]
It would only help in that the other parties would be able to help improve the standard before it is released. Oh, and have equal footing with Intel too, since they would be sharing equal responsibility to creating it.
[1] Counter argument: HD-DVD and BluRay. Nope, that case is an argument FOR what I am saying, not against. If they both would have worked together to produce an open standard, instead of trying to beat each other completely, they both would have had the right product and we, the consumers, would be able to have real competition in the hardware sector.
That is all.
Interestingly (or not) you demonstrate a logical understanding of the technology marketplace. To paraphrase you, if I may, Intel and AMD are fighting about who gets to piss on the idea of competition creates value for the consumer. Any space where AMD and Intel are competing is full of this, and not inconsequentially, lawsuits. Intel has been partnered with MS for a long time, and they worked hard to be the hardware version of what MS was to software.
We can detail the lawsuits ad nausea, but my point is that anyone that was a healthy partner with MS has done to their industry what MS did to software. Like that or not, it is true. In the end, we have Mr Gates to thank for this, no matter how philanthropic he may try to be these days. I wonder sometimes how far exactly he has set the human race back from what will eventually, and necessarily be.
Though that is sort of scifi philosophy, it is true. In the name of riches, the advancement of technology has been slowed, deliberately, and with malicious intent against the betterment of mankind. In this way, I find his generosity a bit pale these days.
Open standards are indeed the ONLY way to create technology and advancement that will last and actually advance mankind in a direction that betters all of us. Despite the socialist sounding tone of that, it is true. We are all better for the sharing of technology from the space race. Technology, and specifically computing/networks are still in the hands of those that would derail it's benefits if there is profit in it. There are those that are trying to change this situation, but it is slow going. Even hardware manufacturers are hobbled by things like the DMCA and it's ilk around the world. Sometimes I'm sad to say I'm American.
Fighting against the 'right thing to do' for the sake of money is not in the best interests of the community, and in the end, it hurts your business. Customer is king, so they say, and when you put hurdles in the way of a complete and exemplary experience by the end user, you harm your business in some way, if not in big ways. It's unfortunate that not enough people will understand that the competitions in the technology markets have hurt them, and they will not understand how to express their frustration that older USB devices won't work with new USB hosts. It will be just one more black magic thing they don't understand about technology type things. They will go to PCs R Us and buy whatever the best they can get happens to be, hoping that it works for a couple of years, not unlike car buyers. So for profits, businesses promote the throw-away society. When there is something new, throw the old away, don't upgrade, don't re-use. How is this helpful to the human race?
Well, just some late night thoughts about this whole thing, and the absolutely ignorant waste it makes of the world.
BTW, there is hardware space competition.... if you are willing to build your own and not buy what the idiot^H^H^H^H^H salesman tells you at worstbuy.
sigh
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Intel has a point: releasing documentation on a non finalized standard creates a fluster-cluck of bad implementations that aren't necessarily compatible with each other. IIRC, isn't that what's happened to 802.11n, pre-n, draft-n, n-ready, looks a bit like n in a dress, MIMO, etc. which just confuse the crap out of a consumer already pissed at USB 2.0 HiSpeed and USB 2.0 FullSpeed crap.
nVidia has a point: Intel not telling anyone else until the last moment would, indeed, give Intel an unfair first mover advantage.
Obvious solution: Release the pre and post release specs with an agreement attached that anyone wanting a copy has to sign. An amount of time that gives everyone a fair chance to get product ready is picked after final specs are chosen. Anyone gaining access to the specs agrees not to release until that time period has passed. Now no one releases incompatible hardware and no one gets an unfair first mover advantage.
If any one of them was really smart and wanted to name it to win, they'd name it either blu-port, usblu, or usb 4.0. I mean seriously, which one are you going to use? One named USB 3.0 or 4.0?
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USB2 is quoted as having 480Mbps throughput, however as the grandparent points out USB2 is not a fully-fledged I/O controller just the PHY layer, the host having to do all the heavy lifting.
The upshot is that when you actually use one bus or the other to, say copy files, firewire at a mere 400Mbps trounces USB2 in throughput.
Yes USB3 is in the pipe with vastly improved on paper specs, but then again Firewire has 3200 and 6400 variants in the pipe as well.
Essentially USB should have been left as an interface for keyboards and mice, and firewire aught to have been adopted by intel as the preferred bus for all high throughput applications, it would also have been preferable to SATA.
Firewire might pay for itself in high speed applications where time == money, but it is sever overkill (and too high cost) for many lower speed applications such as mouse, keyboard etc. USB is king of the low speed domain because of low cost: a USB-cappable microcontroller only costs a couple of bucks and a sub dollar micro can do a low speed bit-banged implementation of USB. Adding USB to peripherals is almost free.
Engineering is the art of compromise.