There are already incompatible versions of Java: BulletTrain, JET, GCJ, Kaffe, Chai. If MS wanted to ship an incompatible Java VM, they could just write it from scratch; they don't need Sun's source code.
I wonder if Rambus is being kept afloat by the PlayStation 2. It isn't used in more than a handful of PC motherboards and I imagine there aren't too many Alpha EV7 and Cray X1 systems being sold.
It looks like Moore's Law is outstripping demand when it comes to RAM; most computers only have one DIMM per channel, in which case you wouldn't even need daisy-chaining. If you want lots of RAM you pay the cost in power.
Oh, you're talking about the instruction prefix. I'm guessing that AMD did the math on this one and making 64 bit the default would have either added too much complexity to the instruction decoder or increased the code size. And really, what does it matter? Very few people write assembly language or care about code size.
First of all, the size of int is determined by the compiler and ABI, not the hardware. Since IA-32E is the same as AMD64, it's too late to change the definition of int.
Second, int is 32 bits on most 64-bit platforms (PPC64, SPARC64, etc.).
Third, long is the same size as void* on virtually all modern platforms, so that's the assumption people should be making.
The Register compares Itanic to the i432: "Bob Colwell, chief architecture honcho for the chip that saved Intel in the mid-1990s, the P6 (Pentium Pro), described the i432 as 'a wonderful research project masquerading as a bad product'."
As someone mentioned, there was the PReP platform that never took off and the CHRP platform that never took off. Now there's an open PowerPC 970 platform.
If IBM came out with a "desktop" or even "workstation" PowerPC machine that ran, say, Yellow Dog Linux (or PPC Suse or the like), how would Apple respond?
"Whatever."
I'm sure Apple would be more than happy to supply a compiler that could turn PPC-X-Windows code to Aqua code - cludgy, but it could work.
Apple doesn't want lots of kludgey X11 ports; they want native Cocoa/Carbon apps. That's why X11 isn't installed by default.
On the other hand - who would use such a (Linux PPC) system?
Yeah, maybe you are mistaken about how the JCP works. Sun has a veto on everything that goes through JCP. And even if the JCP was an open process, what does that have to do with the license of the J2SE reference implementation?
WHY doesn't SSE2 include a double-precision floating point multiply-add instruction?
Most instructions take two operands, but a multiply-add takes three, so you need an extra port on the register file and enough space in the instruction encoding to fit four register numbers. I'm not familiar with the specifics of SSE2, though.
Napster was not doing anything illegal, as they are just collecting lists of people downloading the same file and provide this list to anyone who is interested. Right?
Speculative as it is, the concept of open spectrum isn't the total anarchy that you suggest. The general idea is that technological improvements may enable less strict regulation of spectrum.
For a more detailed look at these issues check out Andrew Odlyzko's work, particularly "The economics of the Internet: Utility, utilization, pricing, and Quality of Service" and "Paris Metro Pricing: The minimalist differentiated services solution".
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Blackdown is not open source. All the open source implementations are incomplete.
I'm sure you know this, but GPL != open source. Sun could release their VM under a license that says "no patent licenses included".
As for the parts of the VM that are not owned by Sun, just don't release them.
Having said all that, I agree that instead of begging for Sun's code people should just work on completing the existing open source VMs.
There are already incompatible versions of Java: BulletTrain, JET, GCJ, Kaffe, Chai. If MS wanted to ship an incompatible Java VM, they could just write it from scratch; they don't need Sun's source code.
I wonder if Rambus is being kept afloat by the PlayStation 2. It isn't used in more than a handful of PC motherboards and I imagine there aren't too many Alpha EV7 and Cray X1 systems being sold.
It looks like Moore's Law is outstripping demand when it comes to RAM; most computers only have one DIMM per channel, in which case you wouldn't even need daisy-chaining. If you want lots of RAM you pay the cost in power.
Oh, you're talking about the instruction prefix. I'm guessing that AMD did the math on this one and making 64 bit the default would have either added too much complexity to the instruction decoder or increased the code size. And really, what does it matter? Very few people write assembly language or care about code size.
First of all, the size of int is determined by the compiler and ABI, not the hardware. Since IA-32E is the same as AMD64, it's too late to change the definition of int.
Second, int is 32 bits on most 64-bit platforms (PPC64, SPARC64, etc.).
Third, long is the same size as void* on virtually all modern platforms, so that's the assumption people should be making.
No, you don't have it right; the Athlon 64/Opteron are fully IA-32E compatible. :-)
The Register compares Itanic to the i432: "Bob Colwell, chief architecture honcho for the chip that saved Intel in the mid-1990s, the P6 (Pentium Pro), described the i432 as 'a wonderful research project masquerading as a bad product'."
Seriously, no one cares about the pedantic electrical engineering definition of broadband. Languages change over time.
See the price of SONET equipment... $$$$
PCI Express isn't a bus; it's a point-to-point connection. And both AGP and PCI Express support DMA, so I'm not sure what your point was.
As someone mentioned, there was the PReP platform that never took off and the CHRP platform that never took off. Now there's an open PowerPC 970 platform.
If IBM came out with a "desktop" or even "workstation" PowerPC machine that ran, say, Yellow Dog Linux (or PPC Suse or the like), how would Apple respond?
"Whatever."
I'm sure Apple would be more than happy to supply a compiler that could turn PPC-X-Windows code to Aqua code - cludgy, but it could work.
Apple doesn't want lots of kludgey X11 ports; they want native Cocoa/Carbon apps. That's why X11 isn't installed by default.
On the other hand - who would use such a (Linux PPC) system?
Nobody; that's why it isn't on the market.
Yeah, maybe you are mistaken about how the JCP works. Sun has a veto on everything that goes through JCP. And even if the JCP was an open process, what does that have to do with the license of the J2SE reference implementation?
Apple, IBM, HP, etc. pay big bucks to license Sun's Java VM.
No, BT is less anonymous than HTTP because you can ask the tracker for the IP addresses of everyone who is currently downloading the file.
Sounds likee OCN.
WHY doesn't SSE2 include a double-precision floating point multiply-add instruction?
Most instructions take two operands, but a multiply-add takes three, so you need an extra port on the register file and enough space in the instruction encoding to fit four register numbers. I'm not familiar with the specifics of SSE2, though.
Napster was not doing anything illegal, as they are just collecting lists of people downloading the same file and provide this list to anyone who is interested. Right?
This has been discussed extensively on the Fedora lists. BitTorrent only helps for large files, but many RPMs are not very big.
If phone companies aren't around, you will be making up the payments to your internet connection provider.
I doubt the phone companies are subsidizing my cable modem provider. If they go away, so what?
Is the answer that the cable can't be used both directions at once, so they set some ratio of time/frequency to send more downstream than upstream?
Correct.
Yeah, the electro-magnetic spectrum.
Speculative as it is, the concept of open spectrum isn't the total anarchy that you suggest. The general idea is that technological improvements may enable less strict regulation of spectrum.
For a more detailed look at these issues check out Andrew Odlyzko's work, particularly "The economics of the Internet: Utility, utilization, pricing, and Quality of Service" and "Paris Metro Pricing: The minimalist differentiated services solution".