FTC to probe deeper into Nvidia's Arm acquisition

[philehidiot]

Thanks for making my headache worse.

I think it's related to the chlorine gas I accidentally made earlier when cleaning my drains.

You should have thrown some phosphorus and mustard powder down there and you could have had the authentic WW1 experience.

My garage is dangerous but not quite that dangerous.

[Friesiansam]

Google complaining that another company's actions could be bad for competition...

Oh the irony!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The problem is that any US company or foreign owned subsidary is basically at the mercy of the US government,who can use any justification,be it economic or national security based to stop things being exported or licensed. Historically the UK and Japan have tended to be more lax on licensing things,so have not tended to block stuff anywhere as much as the US can do,and remember it can be basically on the whim of any president via executive orders! But this is well within the rights of the US to do - its their technology after all.

This leads to problems as it can even mean a few percent of US made or even licensed content in a whole product can stop a foreign made and designed product being exported or sold.You need export permissions otherwise its illegal to export such products. This is why ARM has done well - ARM based products have encountered very little restrictions being exported worldwide so loads of countries made designs based around the ISA.

The issue is that now,despite ARM hitting untold highs in the PC and server markets,its also slowly becoming the beginning of the end in some ways. The ways Trump used executive orders has generally sent jitters accross the tech world. The US always had these powers but sparingly used them,but he didn't. The issue is other countries are now questioning it might be them next,if they get into some spat with another US government.

Hence you are seeing national CPU initiatives of the EU,India,etc being developed around RISC-V,which ironically originated in the US. However,even though it might take years for performance products to appear,due to the open nature of the ISA and its licensing,it does means CPUs using it,can't be banned by any one country at an ISA level. This means any foreign products using it don't need to ask for export permissions from 3rd countries at least at the design level. This process is also known as import substitution.

[kompukare]

The problem is that any US company or foreign owned subsidary is basically at the mercy of the US government,who can use any justification,be it economic or national security based to stop things being exported or licensed. Historically the UK and Japan have tended to be more lax on licensing things,so have not tended to block stuff anywhere as much as the US can do,and remember it can be basically on the whim of any president via executive orders!

This leads to problems as it can even mean a few percent of US made or even licensed content in a whole product can stop a foreign made product being exported or sold. This is why ARM has done well - ARM based products have encountered very little restrictions being exported worldwide so loads of countries made designs based around the ISA.

The issue is that now,despite ARM hitting untold highs in the PC and server markets,its also slowly becoming the beginning of the end in some ways. The ways Trump used executive orders has generally sent jitters accross the tech world.The issue is other countries are now questioning it might be them next,if they get into some spat with another US government. Hence you are seeing national CPU initiatives of the EU,India,etc being developed around RISC-V,which ironically originated in the US. However,even though it might take years for performance products to appear,due to the open nature of the ISA and its licensing,it does means CPUs using it,can't be banned by anyone country at an ISA level. This means any foreign products using it don't need to ask for export permissions from 3rd countries at least at the design level.

Obvioulsy, China and Russia have had initiatives to kick-start and develop CPUs without foreign backdoors and control for decades.

These were usually low-key low budget initiatvies, but thanks to the ex-Toodler-in-Charge, they have now taken on a real urgency. Just have tohope Trump doesn't start taken credit for kick-starting RISC-V!

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

Obvioulsy, China and Russia have had initiatives to kick-start and develop CPUs without foreign backdoors and control for decades.

These were usually low-key low budget initiatvies, but thanks to the ex-Toodler-in-Charge, they have now taken on a real urgency. Just have tohope Trump doesn't start taken credit for kick-starting RISC-V!

Russia its the Elbrus design - at one point Russia cared so little they allowed Intel to hire away many of their key people in the 1990s/early 2000s. Now they are basically making new stuff around that. But what made me realise the tech jitters was both the EU and India,starting new national design initiatives based around RISC-V. This tells me they are concerned they could get into a spat with another government at some point and are concerned. Its happened to India for example,especially with weapons systems in the past(the Swedish Viggen fighter was blocked) due to the US supporting Pakistan(although now exports are allowed).

[ik9000]

Obvioulsy, China and Russia have had initiatives to kick-start and develop CPUs without foreign backdoors and control for decades.

These were usually low-key low budget initiatvies, but thanks to the ex-Toodler-in-Charge, they have now taken on a real urgency. Just have tohope Trump doesn't start taken credit for kick-starting RISC-V!

I get the impression he wouldn't know what it was, knowing the scandal train he'd probably think it was a "dancer" asking for child support or something similar.

[lumireleon]

Google is the sole owner of Android and their OS powers 2 billion phones, I bet Nvidia is scared of Google coz they can protest and switch off the Play store and any updates thus causing a global uprising. The USA government cannot accept such a thing a.k.a TAXES. (just imagine if Alphabet switches off Google Maps, I will personally hit the streets!)

[Tabbykatze]

Google is the sole owner of Android and their OS powers 2 billion phones, I bet Nvidia is scared of Google coz they can protest and switch off the Play store and any updates thus causing a global uprising. The USA government cannot accept such a thing a.k.a TAXES. (just imagine if Alphabet switches off Google Maps, I will personally hit the streets!)

No, they're the sole owner of Google Play Apps, the Android OS is still open source. Google switching off major services would be a problem but wouldn't end the world.

Now, Google switching off Search would be absolute chaos.

[lumireleon]

Alphabet calls Android open source but I am not sure if that's true (sceptical), if it was Huawei would not invest billions in Harmony OS. Android without Google is a dead operating system. Modify it, cook it but without the creative aspect of Google backed in you will be having a rough run. Despite Huawei making great phones (hardware) I cant buy one. Skewed security updates, limited Huawei app store which leads to stability issues has made me shun Huawei. Microsoft would have been the third alternative but just like Intel they slept.

[Tabbykatze]

Alphabet calls Android open source but I am not sure if that's true (sceptical), if it was Huawei would not invest billions in Harmony OS. Android without Google is a dead operating system. Modify it, cook it but without the creative aspect of Google backed in you will be having a rough run. Despite Huawei making great phones (hardware) I cant buy one. Skewed security updates, limited Huawei app store which leads to stability issues has made me shun Huawei. Microsoft would have been the third alternative but just like Intel they slept.

No, it is open source, Google cannot fundamentally change the AOSP easily into a closed source because of the very nature of how much it is used. Yes, it absolutely could make future versions closed or release under a different licensing paradigm (like Elastic et al) but it's not in their best interests.

Huawei invested billions into Harmony OS because of Trumps trade sanctions on Huawei which also includes the Google provided applications including Play, Search, GMail, Maps etc so that meant releasing a full experience Google Android smartphone just got kneecapped. Google played their game very clever, they made the apps they develop which really are just "quality of life" but have become so integral to the usage of Android, deploying Android without them would be painful.

Google doesn't back anything and any business can right now grab AOSP, fork it and make their own OS tickety boo, as long as they are willing to develop equivalent QoL applications that make the experience less naff in comparison.

[Dribble]

Thing is, Nvidia have never licenced anything out before have they?

And while selling ARM to anyone who is actually an ARM player was always going to get lots of scrutiny, it being Nvidia doubly so.

After all they have managed to alienate so many of their past 'partners' over the last few decades (Microsoft, Apply, Sony) leaving them with only really Nintendo.

They've licensed plenty of stuff (you could license their whole gpu stack if you wanted last I heard). The whole alienate partners stuff isn't based in reality - this is big business not the playground. Just because AMD won more console contracts doesn't mean those console companies won't work with Nvidia and most do on lots of different things (.e.g. the MS Azure cloud which is worth significantly more then the consoles uses plenty of Nvidia hardware).

[Tabbykatze]

They've licensed plenty of stuff (you could license their whole gpu stack if you wanted last I heard). The whole alienate partners stuff isn't based in reality - this is big business not the playground. Just because AMD won more console contracts doesn't mean those console companies won't work with Nvidia and most do on lots of different things (.e.g. the MS Azure cloud which is worth significantly more then the consoles uses plenty of Nvidia hardware).

Ooh, I guess you don't remember the soldering issue with Nvidia GPUs being provided to Apple and how neither company now want anything to do with each other. Nvidia also regularly alienates (read, is hostile to) Linux users by being very closed off with their drivers and systems. Just a couple of examples.

IRT licensing the Nvidia GPU Stack, do you have a source on that because that sounds utterly ridiculous that Nvidia would license out their crown jewels to any company.

What examples do you have of Nvidia licensing out their tech for unobstructed use on the market? The closest I can think of is they license out closed source libraries for use as API calls but you cannot view them, modify or comment on them, you are simply a consumer of their technology, not a depthful partner. I'm not too aux fait with their Deep Learning system licensing models but I would expect they would hold those cards as close as possible to their chest unless they need to.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

People have forgotten how Nvidia didn't bother to properly address the G80/G92 series bumps issues,then put aside only around $200 million for it,and let OEMs "handle it". One of those was Apple and their fix was to issue guidance to ramp up cooler fan speeds and apparently making it hard for OEMs to source replacements looking at what I saw in the realworld. Its also obvious that Charlie D from The Register/Semi-Accurate got his hatred of them,because he discovered it,and they obviously hadn't had much love for him because of it!

[lumireleon]

People complained when Microsoft got hold of GitHub what has changed?

[kompukare]

People have forgotten how Nvidia didn't bother to properly address the G80/G92 series bumps issues,then put aside only around $200 million for it,and let OEMs "handle it". One of those was Apple and their fix was to issue guidance to ramp up cooler fan speeds and apparently making it hard for OEMs to source replacements looking at what I saw in the realworld. Its also obvious that Charlie D from The Register/Semi-Accurate got his hatred of them,because he discovered it,and they obviously hadn't had much love for him because of it!

I wonder if around the time Charlie broke the story, some of the more vocal Nvidia internet supporters had a huge go at him?

Breaking that story was a proper piece of investigative journalism with him digging through various manifests, part number lists, solder specs and so on until he figured out what was going on. Nvidia had far preferred to keep it all hidden.

At the time I was affected with a 8800GT (which I had bought ages before this came out) and some nForce chipset which was bought after the story was written. If the wider tech media hadn't been too chicken to report this widely I would have know not to buy that nForce mobo

[Dribble]

Ooh, I guess you don't remember the soldering issue with Nvidia GPUs being provided to Apple and how neither company now want anything to do with each other. Nvidia also regularly alienates (read, is hostile to) Linux users by being very closed off with their drivers and systems. Just a couple of examples.

IRT licensing the Nvidia GPU Stack, do you have a source on that because that sounds utterly ridiculous that Nvidia would license out their crown jewels to any company.

What examples do you have of Nvidia licensing out their tech for unobstructed use on the market? The closest I can think of is they license out closed source libraries for use as API calls but you cannot view them, modify or comment on them, you are simply a consumer of their technology, not a depthful partner. I'm not too aux fait with their Deep Learning system licensing models but I would expect they would hold those cards as close as possible to their chest unless they need to.

Nvidia only alienates the true open source evangelists - those that just use linux and don't care about open source (e.g. businesses) often pick them because their closed source drivers work the best. While I said they would be willing to license designs they certainly won't do it for free which is what opensource is all about.

Apple almost certainly picked AMD over Nvidia because they are cheaper - Apple is known for driving a very hard bargain on hardware, and Nvidia is known for maintaining their margins even if it costs them business, and we know AMD is willing to take on low margin deals (e.g. consoles). Again companies aren't children in the playground. They don't hate each other and hold grudges - they are very selfish entities just in it to make as much money for their share holders as possible, and they'll work with anyone (within the law) to achieve that.

As for source on licensing see:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/7083/...to-3rd-parties