Re:The thing I don't get about VLIW is this...
on
Itanium Problems
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· Score: 1
I love faster processors and 64-bit processors as much as I do SMP, but my original question was about the concept of VLIW vs RISC (or even CISC). When you can only use 1 or 2 of the 4 available execution units for most tasks, then you are throwing too much silicon at a problem that is better suited to more, smaller processors.
The other thing, as you point out, is that making 1 VLIW chip twice as fast is significantly harder than doubling the speed of more, smaller processors.
Re:The thing I don't get about VLIW is this...
on
Itanium Problems
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· Score: 2, Insightful
If 33% of the cycles can be spent executing 4 instructions at once, then sure, VLIW effectively doubles the processor speed -- but otherwise, it seems they are throwing silicon (and electricity) at a problem that additional CPUs could solve just about as well.
I have nothing against 64-bit processors, I just have serious doubts that it's possible to parallelize most applications or system libraries that much. I don't have facts or statistics either way, but I'm willing to concede the point if you can cite them.
The thing I don't get about VLIW is this...
on
Itanium Problems
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· Score: 2, Interesting
It's all well and good to be able to execute 4 instructions at once, but most systems spend a large portion of their time in library routines (strlen), function prolog/epilog, and so on. Even assuming that you are running some pretty hard number crunching code that can parallelize the inner loops, you are still starving all of the other threads/processes that could be running.
Why not just work on n-way SMP, so that an application can monopolize one or more processors and still have cycles to spare for mundane work.
IBM states facts, Microsoft doublespeaks
on
IBM, MS Critique MySQL
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Open-source databases "don't support as many users, they don't support as much data, and you don't have as many connectivity options," said Jeff Jones, director of strategy for data management solutions at IBM. "They lack some key functionality and lack the scalability and performance, which keeps them out of the enterprise," Jones said.
That's absolutely true: MySQL is well-suited to the needs of small and middle sized businesses (say search engines and invoice databases), but not for the biggest enterprise-level tasks out there (say for the IRS or Social Security).
"So far, I still see MySQL and some of the other open-source databases as really niche players," said Sheryl Tullis, product manager for the SQL Server database at Microsoft.
Now that's just wrong. The number of companies that can use a middle sized database greatly outnumber those that need big iron. Oracle, IBM, and so on are the "niche players" here. Sure they make money hand over fist, but it's for support contracts and so on for fewer (but massive) clients.
Companies will pick the software that best meets their needs. Open source is cheap, easy, and supports the majority of cases. Big iron databases are powerful but expensive to buy and maintain, and only those who can afford them will use them.
In this case, Microsoft is simply trying to convince people that bigger (and more expensive) is always better.
The thing that struck me here was not "how could they believe what they read in the Onion?", but "is there a segment of the Chinese that takes anything in print as fact?"
In our open society, we take freedom of the press to the extreme by publishing just about anything. It forces people to read news with a critical eye, which carries over to various aspects of out life. In a society where all information and editorial is controlled and filtered heavily, is it a surprise that "news" and "critical thinking" don't always go hand in hand.
I'm not trying to slight the Chinese here, I'm sure there are plenty of US Citizens who pick up the Onion and believe it as fact -- I'm sure it would confuse the heck out of my grandmother. And how many times have you seen someone repost a good April Fools joke as fact?
So yes, it's funny, but apply your critical thinking and take it in context -- that the world is full of gullible people.
Most codes are not leaked by the people who bought them, but by someone else they know or work with. If they have no compunction about posting your name to the Internet, how much do you think they respect your credit card?
Not to mention that we support other methods of payment.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Tell ya what, when we go out of business, we'll post the necessary tools to every warez and crack site we can find -- especially those that host our software already.
Troll.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
This is a very valid point that has been raised before.
We have discussed putting key parts of our license system into escrow. If the company was ever to go under, provisions would be made to publish the tools necessary to unlock our products forever.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
calling up the server to auth the key is a Very Bad Idea
100% agreed on this. The only time our software ever contacts our server is in direct response to a user's request to (a) register the software or (b) renew an expired code.
We don't believe in spyware.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
We've made it harder for people to download codes from the net by making them expire.
We've made it harder for people to reverse engineer the algorithm by leaving some bits of the code "silent" and untested until later revisions.
We've made it harder for people to crack the program by sprinkling lots of little serial checks throughout the code.
It's not perfect, and I'm sure someone will find a way to bypass it eventually, but it is vastly more secure than our previous system. All we want is for those who like the software enough to use it, to pay for it.
Good game. Worth paying for. Not worth paying $40 CDN for.
Then you've made an informed decision, and you are voting with the most important voice you have: your money. This is the fundamental tenet of capitalism, and it's what makes the free market work.
I completely respect your decision, and will make sure to bring up your viewpoint at the next company meeting. Thank you for your honesty.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
The only time you have "Renew" an expired code is when you try to activate the software on a completely new system. Those 194 people were installing Snapz for the first time, and were also using serial numbers that were more than 30 days old.
It's important to note that you don't have to reenter (or renew) your code every time we release a minor update.
Unfortunately, while we can automate some bits of our registration process, the fact is that we need a human to read and process the incoming orders. You see, there are any number of people who don't enter their information quite right, or we get special requests to ship the game to someone else, or they'll add a comment "I may have already paid for this game, can you check before charging my card?"
It's not ideal, but we try to answer all requests within 1 business day. Of course, this doesn't always work -- for example we had a major ice storm on Thursday, so it took an extra day for some people to get their codes.
I understand your frustration, and I can assure you that we are trying to find ways to improve the process all the time.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
It's been 8 months since Snapz Pro X was released, and no one has written a generator yet. And when they do, the next feature update will detect and disable the majority of those numbers.
It's an arms race, of sorts. We're not interested in escalating it, just preventing the casual piracy that the article illustrates.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
So who does it hurt if someone pirates a copy of something that they would never buy?
It harms the people who paid for the software by diluting the value of the product they paid for. Instead of amortizing the cost of the software across the actual users (at a substantial discount to everyone involved), they freeload off the suckers. It's a vicious circle, as the sucker eventually see this and start freeloading -- and companies go out of business and software prices go up.
Please explain why 100 people should pay $10 for a software used by 1000, when they all could pay $2 and everyone would benefit (including the author).
You see, your argument rings of the same logic that makes insurance fraud is a crime.
There seems to be this mistaken notion that every pirated copy of software equates to a lost sale.
If you check the article, I was careful not to make this claim. Of those 50% who tried to pirate the software (obviously they placed some value in it), some of them must be considering whether it is worthwhile to pay. If they decide not to, then they can't (and shouldn't) use the product.
Agreed that the BSA's math is flawed, but until someone actually comes up with the magic "piracy formula", I'm sure it will continue to be used.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
I don't know how you can have so much trouble with the concept that there are people that cannot afford to buy every piece of software that they want to use, or that there are people who want to use a piece of software but not enough to justify the expenditure.
I have no problem whatsoever undstanding this viewpoint. It's the same viewpoint of my 2 year old son, who wants every shiny thing he sees without consequence for cost or reason.
Piracy doesn't equate to lost sales, but it does equate to immaturity and lack of character.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
You really can't count them as lost revenue if there was no chance of revenue in the first place.
Agreed, and if you check, I never made that claim in the article. But 50% of the people who tried to install the product did try to use the product for free. Obviously they felt it had some value to them.
By blocking them, we force them to decide (again) whether they needed the software enough to pay for it -- or at least temporarily stopped them from freeloading. I don't know what percentage of those blocked will come back an register, but it's certainly better than nothing.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
The software only calls home when (a) you explicitly register the software online or (b) click the button to request an updated license code. We don't even encrypt the data -- you can verify that it's just the user name and license code you entered.
In addition, neither of those methods are required to activate the software -- you can always use our email or use our toll-free phone number.
We are security conscious, and we respect our customer's privacy.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Understood. Your concerns are valid in general, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many of our customers who would call our products overpriced (our latest game is only $20 and took years to write) or our support lacking (our tech support first notch, and our software is generally held up as an example of shareware quality).
As for difficulty of payment, I don't know what more we can do than accept major credit cards,or take cash/checks/money orders through the mail -- but you are welcome to drop your payment off at our office if it makes you happy.
As for the protection mechanisms, only time will tell. The article describes a minor improvement in the process, but the Snapz registration system has worked well enough for almost 8 months now.
The best model to sell shareware through is by release a community edition and standard edition. The standard edition has to contain significantly more features and it needs to come with good support.
The only problem with this is that eventually someone will post the full featured version to the same warez sites that currently hold serial numbers.
Most shareware just generally lacks any sense of quality.
If you have access to a Mac, I highly recommend you give our products a try before passing judgment. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Slashdot Mirror
I love faster processors and 64-bit processors as much as I do SMP, but my original question was about the concept of VLIW vs RISC (or even CISC). When you can only use 1 or 2 of the 4 available execution units for most tasks, then you are throwing too much silicon at a problem that is better suited to more, smaller processors.
The other thing, as you point out, is that making 1 VLIW chip twice as fast is significantly harder than doubling the speed of more, smaller processors.
If 33% of the cycles can be spent executing 4 instructions at once, then sure, VLIW effectively doubles the processor speed -- but otherwise, it seems they are throwing silicon (and electricity) at a problem that additional CPUs could solve just about as well.
I have nothing against 64-bit processors, I just have serious doubts that it's possible to parallelize most applications or system libraries that much. I don't have facts or statistics either way, but I'm willing to concede the point if you can cite them.
It's all well and good to be able to execute 4 instructions at once, but most systems spend a large portion of their time in library routines (strlen), function prolog/epilog, and so on. Even assuming that you are running some pretty hard number crunching code that can parallelize the inner loops, you are still starving all of the other threads/processes that could be running.
Why not just work on n-way SMP, so that an application can monopolize one or more processors and still have cycles to spare for mundane work.
Open-source databases "don't support as many users, they don't support as much data, and you don't have as many connectivity options," said Jeff Jones, director of strategy for data management solutions at IBM. "They lack some key functionality and lack the scalability and performance, which keeps them out of the enterprise," Jones said. That's absolutely true: MySQL is well-suited to the needs of small and middle sized businesses (say search engines and invoice databases), but not for the biggest enterprise-level tasks out there (say for the IRS or Social Security). "So far, I still see MySQL and some of the other open-source databases as really niche players," said Sheryl Tullis, product manager for the SQL Server database at Microsoft. Now that's just wrong. The number of companies that can use a middle sized database greatly outnumber those that need big iron. Oracle, IBM, and so on are the "niche players" here. Sure they make money hand over fist, but it's for support contracts and so on for fewer (but massive) clients. Companies will pick the software that best meets their needs. Open source is cheap, easy, and supports the majority of cases. Big iron databases are powerful but expensive to buy and maintain, and only those who can afford them will use them. In this case, Microsoft is simply trying to convince people that bigger (and more expensive) is always better.
The thing that struck me here was not "how could they believe what they read in the Onion?", but "is there a segment of the Chinese that takes anything in print as fact?"
In our open society, we take freedom of the press to the extreme by publishing just about anything. It forces people to read news with a critical eye, which carries over to various aspects of out life. In a society where all information and editorial is controlled and filtered heavily, is it a surprise that "news" and "critical thinking" don't always go hand in hand.
I'm not trying to slight the Chinese here, I'm sure there are plenty of US Citizens who pick up the Onion and believe it as fact -- I'm sure it would confuse the heck out of my grandmother. And how many times have you seen someone repost a good April Fools joke as fact?
So yes, it's funny, but apply your critical thinking and take it in context -- that the world is full of gullible people.
Never mind, I should take my own advice. =)
Read it again, it's an LCD not a CRT.
What a clear and obvious hole in our design. I can't believe we tried to pull one over on you.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Most codes are not leaked by the people who bought them, but by someone else they know or work with. If they have no compunction about posting your name to the Internet, how much do you think they respect your credit card?
Not to mention that we support other methods of payment.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
We wouldn't necessarily open source everything, but we would release the tools necessary to activate our products at your convenience. Fair enough?
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Tell ya what, when we go out of business, we'll post the necessary tools to every warez and crack site we can find -- especially those that host our software already.
Troll.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
This is a very valid point that has been raised before.
We have discussed putting key parts of our license system into escrow. If the company was ever to go under, provisions would be made to publish the tools necessary to unlock our products forever.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
A possibly better alternative would be to have the company release a patch that turned off the date-checking code in the program.
This is exactly what we're talking about. See my other post in this thread.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
calling up the server to auth the key is a Very Bad Idea
100% agreed on this. The only time our software ever contacts our server is in direct response to a user's request to (a) register the software or (b) renew an expired code.
We don't believe in spyware.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
We've made it harder for people to download codes from the net by making them expire.
We've made it harder for people to reverse engineer the algorithm by leaving some bits of the code "silent" and untested until later revisions.
We've made it harder for people to crack the program by sprinkling lots of little serial checks throughout the code.
It's not perfect, and I'm sure someone will find a way to bypass it eventually, but it is vastly more secure than our previous system. All we want is for those who like the software enough to use it, to pay for it.
I suggest that Ambrosia focus on charging for support and let the software speak for itself.
I don't know if I'd want to use software where the company had incentive to make it buggier so they could stay in business.
Good game. Worth paying for. Not worth paying $40 CDN for.
Then you've made an informed decision, and you are voting with the most important voice you have: your money. This is the fundamental tenet of capitalism, and it's what makes the free market work.
I completely respect your decision, and will make sure to bring up your viewpoint at the next company meeting. Thank you for your honesty.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
The only time you have "Renew" an expired code is when you try to activate the software on a completely new system. Those 194 people were installing Snapz for the first time, and were also using serial numbers that were more than 30 days old.
It's important to note that you don't have to reenter (or renew) your code every time we release a minor update.
Unfortunately, while we can automate some bits of our registration process, the fact is that we need a human to read and process the incoming orders. You see, there are any number of people who don't enter their information quite right, or we get special requests to ship the game to someone else, or they'll add a comment "I may have already paid for this game, can you check before charging my card?"
It's not ideal, but we try to answer all requests within 1 business day. Of course, this doesn't always work -- for example we had a major ice storm on Thursday, so it took an extra day for some people to get their codes.
I understand your frustration, and I can assure you that we are trying to find ways to improve the process all the time.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
It's been 8 months since Snapz Pro X was released, and no one has written a generator yet. And when they do, the next feature update will detect and disable the majority of those numbers.
It's an arms race, of sorts. We're not interested in escalating it, just preventing the casual piracy that the article illustrates.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
So who does it hurt if someone pirates a copy of something that they would never buy?
It harms the people who paid for the software by diluting the value of the product they paid for. Instead of amortizing the cost of the software across the actual users (at a substantial discount to everyone involved), they freeload off the suckers. It's a vicious circle, as the sucker eventually see this and start freeloading -- and companies go out of business and software prices go up.
Please explain why 100 people should pay $10 for a software used by 1000, when they all could pay $2 and everyone would benefit (including the author).
You see, your argument rings of the same logic that makes insurance fraud is a crime.
There seems to be this mistaken notion that every pirated copy of software equates to a lost sale.
If you check the article, I was careful not to make this claim. Of those 50% who tried to pirate the software (obviously they placed some value in it), some of them must be considering whether it is worthwhile to pay. If they decide not to, then they can't (and shouldn't) use the product.
Agreed that the BSA's math is flawed, but until someone actually comes up with the magic "piracy formula", I'm sure it will continue to be used.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
I don't know how you can have so much trouble with the concept that there are people that cannot afford to buy every piece of software that they want to use, or that there are people who want to use a piece of software but not enough to justify the expenditure.
I have no problem whatsoever undstanding this viewpoint. It's the same viewpoint of my 2 year old son, who wants every shiny thing he sees without consequence for cost or reason.
Piracy doesn't equate to lost sales, but it does equate to immaturity and lack of character.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
You really can't count them as lost revenue if there was no chance of revenue in the first place.
Agreed, and if you check, I never made that claim in the article. But 50% of the people who tried to install the product did try to use the product for free. Obviously they felt it had some value to them.
By blocking them, we force them to decide (again) whether they needed the software enough to pay for it -- or at least temporarily stopped them from freeloading. I don't know what percentage of those blocked will come back an register, but it's certainly better than nothing.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
The software only calls home when (a) you explicitly register the software online or (b) click the button to request an updated license code. We don't even encrypt the data -- you can verify that it's just the user name and license code you entered.
In addition, neither of those methods are required to activate the software -- you can always use our email or use our toll-free phone number.
We are security conscious, and we respect our customer's privacy.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.
Understood. Your concerns are valid in general, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find many of our customers who would call our products overpriced (our latest game is only $20 and took years to write) or our support lacking (our tech support first notch, and our software is generally held up as an example of shareware quality).
As for difficulty of payment, I don't know what more we can do than accept major credit cards,or take cash/checks/money orders through the mail -- but you are welcome to drop your payment off at our office if it makes you happy.
As for the protection mechanisms, only time will tell. The article describes a minor improvement in the process, but the Snapz registration system has worked well enough for almost 8 months now.
The best model to sell shareware through is by release a community edition and standard edition. The standard edition has to contain significantly more features and it needs to come with good support.
The only problem with this is that eventually someone will post the full featured version to the same warez sites that currently hold serial numbers.
Most shareware just generally lacks any sense of quality.
If you have access to a Mac, I highly recommend you give our products a try before passing judgment. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised.
Matt Slot / Bitwise Operator / Ambrosia Software, Inc.