SDL - WTF is that in my paid hardware..

[PKTKS]

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Software-Defined-Silicon-Intel

I was never really much fond to Intel methods of selling their stuff..

Working as a repair man along some decades allowed me to
build a pretty wide vision of hardware sellers and re-sellers..

The list is long.. but none of them ever compared to Intel methods.

WINTEL along the late 80 and all 90s.. caused me serious problems..
A lot of  prejudice and dozens of bad invested money...

But this time WTF ... this time..

Please just go to hell!
I am not willing to pay a crippled hardware ...
It may even be disabled without my consent.

Just FUCK OFF.
There are others..

Paul

[madires]

The next step will be subscription based CPUs?

[PKTKS]

The next step will be subscription based CPUs?

It seems already this way...

Bundled into their microcode or firmware ...
Supervised by UEFI and trusted by TPM shit...

WTF .. if you do not pay the rent they pull the plug..
or worst..  any bug or just mal function may render you stuff unusable..

WTF .. greed replaced responsible brains.

Just FUCK OFF these assholes..

Paul

PS not to mention EXTRA costs of power running daemons to supervise that shit...
and all the hassle to live with this...  fuck off

[m k]

Since commuting with second hand EVs is a bit unknown personal long time renting is lifting its head.

Hand held computers have been up for quite some time and bigger ones down.

Maybe they are combining things and are visioning that old way has no serious money any longer.
Maybe they are right, for example I can't remember a broken motherboard without special external extras.

[Monkeh]

Here's a dirty little secret then: Your CPUs are already full of disabled features. Ones for higher end models, cores disabled to sell in a lower price bracket, and so forth. Intel are trying to make more money and provide greater flexibility by allowing you to unlock these later, but to you this is evil and stupid and.. well, doesn't impact you in the slightest so why are you whinging?

[PKTKS]

I don't .

I am aware that the Intel microcode can even contain a sparse CPU/MCU
with builtin TCP/IP stacks and so forth.

They were never reliable nor trusty.

The thing now is that their money make stratagem changed...

From undisclosed builtin FAB to aggressive and  hostile
  "you need to pay this to work"

And of course..  running on line supervisors and now open schemas
that will not only monitor your CPU inner  but also  disable it in case
some "feature" not paid.

So far I could live with the model of FAB bundled features..
But I will not purchase that kind of hostile invasive stupid crap.

There are alternatives.

As usual your comments make my days.. 

i was missing you
Paul

 

[Monkeh]

You're jumping to conclusions without even having read the article, let alone reviewed the proposed software. Not to mention making major technical errors when stating your 'awareness'.

As usual, nothing but angry noise from you.

[ataradov]

Yep, PKTKS, do you have to spread FUD in every single thread?

It is great to have an option to enable certain features for a fee after the purchase. I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case. If they see it as economically viable, then what's the issue? Does it burn you knowing that there is hardware right there that you can't use? Why? And if so, as it has been said, most modern microcontrollers include a ton of hardware that is disabled and not accessible on lower end models, but they can be reprogrammed at the factory to be higher end models.

But it looks like they are only doing it for server CPUs anyway.

[PKTKS]

Nah
No fud no rant..

These are published bits. 

Ok fan boys
 I got yours ideas..

Paul

[wraper]

I agree that's its shifting the features from many SKUs with hard defined features to something like oscilloscope license upgrades. However it also opens the doors for subscription crap to produce a stable extortion revenue flow.

[Ed.Kloonk]

Yep, PKTKS, do you have to spread FUD in every single thread?

It is great to have an option to enable certain features for a fee after the purchase. I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case. If they see it as economically viable, then what's the issue? Does it burn you knowing that there is hardware right there that you can't use? Why? And if so, as it has been said, most modern microcontrollers include a ton of hardware that is disabled and not accessible on lower end models, but they can be reprogrammed at the factory to be higher end models.

But it looks like they are only doing it for server CPUs anyway.

How about this. The CPU slows down over time unless you feed it periodic unlock codes.

 

(Don't think they haven't thought about it.) 

[PKTKS]

Yep, PKTKS, do you have to spread FUD in every single thread?

It is great to have an option to enable certain features for a fee after the purchase. I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case. If they see it as economically viable, then what's the issue? Does it burn you knowing that there is hardware right there that you can't use? Why? And if so, as it has been said, most modern microcontrollers include a ton of hardware that is disabled and not accessible on lower end models, but they can be reprogrammed at the factory to be higher end models.

But it looks like they are only doing it for server CPUs anyway.

How about this. The CPU slows down over time unless you feed it periodic unlock codes.

 

(Don't think they haven't thought about it.) 

I have a  better...

You paid a 32 CORE CPU...
They locked 28 cores unless you pay monthly fees...

But. you still consumes power over 32 CPUs and they require you to run an invasive daemon to monitor you CPU usage..

If I buy a car or motorcycle I expect they have wheels and functional parts..
fuck off this greed.

Paul 

[NiHaoMike]

You paid a 32 CORE CPU...
They locked 28 cores unless you pay monthly fees...

But. you still consumes power over 32 CPUs and they require you to run an invasive daemon to monitor you CPU usage..

Sure sounds like the manufacturer is just "reserving" those 28 cores for their own crypto mining...

[mfro]

Nothing new.

In the very beginning of my career, I was working for Control Data when they introduced their Cyber 2000 model.
This was the time when these machines were still sold including their "dedicated service engineer".

Anyways, the Cyber 2000 was available in two different configurations, the more expensive one with dual the processing power than the cheaper one which was field upgradeable.

On upgrade, the service engineer spent a whole day at customer premises at (and in) the machine needlessly opening and closing covers, pulling and plugging boards until he eventually set the one single jumper that activated the second CPU that was already there from the beginning...

[PKTKS]

Nothing new.
(..)

yehh sure it is not new....  but all things equal...
I've seen people dropping that more than going happy with the flow..

PHORONIX comments are hilarious..  they range from
- yeah FUCK YOU INTEL  to
- my gosh i can't wait to pay these licenses...

ALAS ... CISCO  is out of my option list for a long time..

No chance in hell I will pay a hardware capable ROUTER ...
fully operational but BRICKED with license "upgrades"

Fuck off CISCO.. 
even MikroTik  which uses license hardware is not that shitty.

MIMOSA, UBIQUITI, Cambrium they all have better models
There are alternatives. And all things going that potty hole..

Fuck off  CISCO and Fuck off WINTEL....

Paul

[nctnico]

Nothing new.

In the very beginning of my career, I was working for Control Data when they introduced their Cyber 2000 model.
This was the time when these machines were still sold including their "dedicated service engineer".

Anyways, the Cyber 2000 was available in two different configurations, the more expensive one with dual the processing power than the cheaper one which was field upgradeable.

On upgrade, the service engineer spent a whole day at customer premises at (and in) the machine needlessly opening and closing covers, pulling and plugging boards until he eventually set the one single jumper that activated the second CPU that was already there from the beginning...

And they where not the only ones. Early in my career I spend some time in a company selling mainframes. A customer wanted more performance so they ordered the CPU upgrade. The CPU had a single jumper to set the performance. After the engineer 'installed' the upgraded CPU the customer complained they didn't notice any performance improvement. Turned out that at some point the CPU already got set to the high performance mode

[Nominal Animal]

It is great to have an option to enable certain features for a fee after the purchase. I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case. If they see it as economically viable, then what's the issue?

This is a genuinely good question.

I personally do not object to this practice in principle.  What I do object to, is when that is done in order for one market segment to subsidize sales in another market segment: that play only works when there is not enough competition in the market, or when the sellers collude against customers.  In my experience, that play usually also involves skirting the law and copyrights...  I do not believe Intel fits in that category at all, and they must base their plan on something different.

For complex equipment, the design and manufacturing costs can easily be such that splitting the product (with run-time configuration the only difference) makes business sense for both the vendor and the customer.  Simply put, the larger volume allows price such savings that selling any of the sub-products alone would not be (as) profitable.
We see this often in high-end test gear and scientific equipment.  Intel already does this type of splitting, by testing and binning its silicon, and selling them as different models.  Now that AMD is once again manufacturing processors that are competitive with Intel ones in both price and performance, I don't see how Intel is going to benefit from this.

(Interestingly, if we look at Nov 2021 Top 500 supercomputers, the top five use processors from Fujitsu, two IBM (Power9), one SunWay, and one AMD Epyc.  There are two Intel Xeon and four AMD Epyc based ones in the top 10.  At these scales, the contracts with the vendor are obviously special, and we shouldn't draw any hasty conclusions.  Indeed, the Nov 2021 highlights tells us that 81.6% of Top500 still runs on Intel (but down from 86.4% since May 2021), and 14.6% run on AMD (up from 9.6% since May 2021).  So, when I am talking about "AMD is once again competitive", I mean the situation has significantly changed in 2021, from say 2020 or 2019.)

This leaves me puzzled.

Every submodel has to be competitive (in terms of both price and performance) with respect to the competitors, especially AMD, possibly ARM-based ones too, or customers will just use the competitors processors instead.  I do not see how Intel intends to pull that off in practice.  It's not like people by server farms first and then seek use cases for them; the need exists before the purchase, in this business domain.

My guess is that a convincing salesdrone has hoodwinked the Intel board to try this, with some fancy calculations on how this will let them somehow subsidize Top 500 or some other server sector purchases, and buttress their business against competition somehow, and will somehow be profitable.

Perhaps; I just don't see how.  Those salesdrones are much better at getting paid and moving on before the actual results are realized.

[SiliconWizard]

I'm not a huge fan of this, but I wouldn't have a big problem with it as long as once you paid for the extra features, the implemented licensing scheme would allow you to *permanently* own the new features, would never be able to disable them behind your back, and would never ever spy on usage or do any kind of telemetry.

Another byproduct of this licensing scheme is that it maximizes the margin for vendors - so at the expense of their customers.

[mfro]

I personally do not object to this practice in principle.

I do. At least in some market segments where this practice is excessive.

Take large storage systems sold with "capacity on demand". They are full of disks, all of them spinning (if they still do) and wasting (lots of) energy, wear and tear, it's just you can't use them because they are disabled by software configuration. That's waste of energy and resources and somebody has to pay for it. Unfortunately, it's those that still do careful capacity planning trying to only buy what they need.

[olkipukki]

The next step will be subscription based CPUs?

Actually, it would be great and will acceleration ARM/RISC-V adaptation with $$$ investments much quicker than these days...

Intel are not stupid, just test the water

[Monkeh]

Yep, PKTKS, do you have to spread FUD in every single thread?

It is great to have an option to enable certain features for a fee after the purchase. I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case. If they see it as economically viable, then what's the issue? Does it burn you knowing that there is hardware right there that you can't use? Why? And if so, as it has been said, most modern microcontrollers include a ton of hardware that is disabled and not accessible on lower end models, but they can be reprogrammed at the factory to be higher end models.

But it looks like they are only doing it for server CPUs anyway.

How about this. The CPU slows down over time unless you feed it periodic unlock codes.

 

(Don't think they haven't thought about it.) 

I have a  better...

You paid a 32 CORE CPU...
They locked 28 cores unless you pay monthly fees...

But. you still consumes power over 32 CPUs and they require you to run an invasive daemon to monitor you CPU usage..

If I buy a car or motorcycle I expect they have wheels and functional parts..
fuck off this greed.

Paul 

The unused cores wouldn't be clocked so they wouldn't consume any power. No daemon is needed to monitor CPU usage, because there are only 4 CPUs. They're not turning it off if you don't pay a subscription because all changes require a cold boot to take effect, and the licenses are written permanently into NVRAM.

You've read nothing.

[Nominal Animal]

I personally do not object to this practice in principle.

I do. At least in some market segments where this practice is excessive.

Take large storage systems sold with "capacity on demand". They are full of disks, all of them spinning (if they still do) and wasting (lots of) energy, wear and tear, it's just you can't use them because they are disabled by software configuration.

To me, that is due to lack of competition.  I'm pretty sure a competitor could sell only partially populated systems at a cheaper price, since they don't need to buy the unused hardware in the first place.

The fact that these systems tend to have an "Enterprise" price tag while using exact same consumer-quality components, is what annoys me much, much more.  (Even more, when they use "enterprise" parts that have lower quality and performance than consumer-quality parts.. but that gets into rant territory.)

[Nominal Animal]

Intel are not stupid, just test the water

And they do occasionally misstep, too.  To me, this has a distinct salesdroid stank to it.

[SiliconWizard]

It's not stupidity. It's greed.

[Nominal Animal]

There are real-world scenarios where software-enabled hardware features make both the minimum and maximum-featured versions cheaper to their end users.
It all depends on how much the added volume reduces the per-unit costs, how much design, setup, and manufacturing costs are saved by using only one hardware base instead of several for the models, and so on.

Intel already does this with its processors, by testing and binning the chips as they come off the wafers, and selling the differently-capable ones under different model names, maximising their manufacturing yields.  I don't see how they could shift from that to software-enabled hardware features without AMD selling more capable processors at cheaper prices just by using the tried-and-true binning method.

[PKTKS]

The unused cores wouldn't be clocked so they wouldn't consume any power. No daemon is needed to monitor CPU usage, because there are only 4 CPUs. They're not turning it off if you don't pay a subscription because all changes require a cold boot to take effect, and the licenses are written permanently into NVRAM.

You've read nothing.

The problem with FAN BOYs... 

Your naive assumptions are just juvenile wonders...

You trust a bunch of greedy idiots..

Why in the bloody hell they care about you me or anybody else?

go figure
Paul

PS? They want our money - no matter consequences. long period.
  they just do not care as long as (easiest) money comes in.

[PKTKS]

It's not stupidity. It's greed.

That is the point.   Bottom line ...
They use any method cheapest  easiest  profitable.
That includes anything

Paul

[PKTKS]

(..)
Intel are not stupid, just test the water

They never was... they are just too greedy...
and never play the game by rules...

WINTEL is the nastiest player out there..
Just care about easy money

the rest is BANANA

Paul

[Monkeh]

The unused cores wouldn't be clocked so they wouldn't consume any power. No daemon is needed to monitor CPU usage, because there are only 4 CPUs. They're not turning it off if you don't pay a subscription because all changes require a cold boot to take effect, and the licenses are written permanently into NVRAM.

You've read nothing.

The problem with FAN BOYs... 

I am no fan boy, little child, I simpy look at facts, not fears.

[PKTKS]

I am no fan boy, little child, I simpy look at facts, not fears.

It is just about MONEY... money money..

Selling competitive hardware is hard business..
Much much easier to run the extortion algorithms
renting intangible "licenses" over and over and over..
from the same locked thing  - cheaper easier

They will pass this DRM digital lobby .. sooner or later.. don't worry
I've seen their methods dozen times.

Very soon CORPORATE *NIX KIOSKs will be everywhere
I'm already  preparing to departure (again) from what is visible ahead.

The whole thing converged already to 2 or 3 corporate landlords.

You will have your biased ideas soon realized
Paul

[SiliconWizard]

Not to back up what PKTKS says in general, I think he tends to be a bit too extreme in general. But here, your "facts" are only partial.

In this CPU example, sure, unused cores won't be clocked (at least, we sure hope that's what Intel implemented, as it's pretty reasonable). So they won't draw any dynamic power, but unless there's provision in the CPU to completely power down those cores - which I'm absolutely not sure of - they'll still draw static power, and for such large integrated circuits on such CMOS processes, that's not unsignificant. Sure is a lot less than when clocked at several GHz, but that's still useless power consumption.

And then, there's also just the general fact of selling products containing a big part of unused items. That's just a *waste* of material. So however you look at it, this licensing model does have inherent efficiency issues generally speaking.

[Monkeh]

Not to back up what PKTKS says in general, I think he tends to be a bit too extreme in general. But here, your "facts" are only partial.

In this CPU example, sure, unused cores won't be clocked (at least, we sure hope that's what Intel implemented, as it's pretty reasonable). So they won't draw any dynamic power, but unless there's provision in the CPU to completely power down those cores - which I'm absolutely not sure of - they'll still draw static power, and for such large integrated circuits on such CMOS processes, that's not unsignificant. Sure is a lot less than when clocked at several GHz, but that's still useless power consumption.

I'm sure of it, because CPUs are already built this way to bring power consumption to an absolute minimum. This isn't a new technology (unless you're PKTKS).

And then, there's also just the general fact of selling products containing a big part of unused items. That's just a *waste* of material. So however you look at it, this licensing model does have inherent efficiency issues generally speaking.

Again, CPUs are chock full of such things already. It's far cheaper than totally different dies for every product.

[PKTKS]

I'm sure of it, because CPUs are already built this way to bring power consumption to an absolute minimum. This isn't a new technology (unless you're PKTKS).

MonKy I love your diligent tireless efforts to make me look like a funky idiot 

Just 2 simple considerations:
- WINTEL is a MULTI-BILLION dollar buzzz - the proper word *IS* RADICAL
   not ordinary  casual or simple. Shareholders are not fan boys.

- Second usually experience is like toillet paper.
 You never miss it - until you need it

So  I am pretty confident that folks reading this will "trust" and believe
if these  competitive offers  are really fair deals..

I will not manifest bias on what some fan boy think is fair

Up to *you*  think if your money is well paid increasing these
multi-billion game margin gains...

Fair deal?

I always miss you monky 
Paul

[JPortici]

I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case.

Can also go the other way, the license terms can change and oh, from now on you need to subscribe, and oh, from next month the fee will increase because, and oh, you can't activate because reasons (politicals and otherwise)
this happen in the software world all the time, it's beginning to happen in the car world, why couldn't it happen in the CPU?

[voltsandjolts]

This is all very old news.
Intel was doing this kind of thing over a decade ago in consumer low end i3 systems, perhaps others.
I remember because it annoyed me then.
What was it called...oh, yeh... Intel Upgrade Service.

[Monkeh]

I'd like to buy the most basic CPU and then enable features as needed instead of buying the most expensive CPU right away just in case.

Can also go the other way, the license terms can change and oh, from now on you need to subscribe, and oh, from next month the fee will increase because, and oh, you can't activate because reasons (politicals and otherwise)
this happen in the software world all the time, it's beginning to happen in the car world, why couldn't it happen in the CPU?

This capability does not exist in this proposed mechanism. Could they in the future? Perhaps, but that's not what they're suggesting implementing now.

So  I am pretty confident that folks reading this will "trust" and believe

Why should they trust and believe claims made by someone leaping to conclusions based on their fears, not the data?

[rstofer]

Back in the day, Amdahl 470 mainframes had a dual speed capability

Amdahl also pioneered a variable-speed feature - the '470 accelerator' - on the V5 and V7 systems that allowed the customer to run the CPUs at the higher level of performance of the V6 and V8 systems, respectively, when desired. The customer was charged by the number of hours used. Some at Amdahl thought this feature would anger customers, but it became quite popular as customer management could now control expenses while still having greater performance available when necessary.

Nothing nefarious, just adjustable capability as needs demand.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Amdahl_Corporation

[PKTKS]

Back in the day, Amdahl 470 mainframes had a dual speed capability

Amdahl also pioneered a variable-speed feature - the '470 accelerator' - on the V5 and V7 systems that allowed the customer to run the CPUs at the higher level of performance of the V6 and V8 systems, respectively, when desired. The customer was charged by the number of hours used. Some at Amdahl thought this feature would anger customers, but it became quite popular as customer management could now control expenses while still having greater performance available when necessary.

Nothing nefarious, just adjustable capability as needs demand.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Amdahl_Corporation

20y ago I would say that should be a good deal
10y ago I would consider alternatives..

Today?   geez ... today that is a spherical bad deal..
no matter which side you look at it ..
just meant to promote these "licenses" buz wo competition

Today cheap volume electronics allows us a wide option set...

unless  obviously you are an certified  institutionalized monkey in the flow..

wo need to think using your own pockets..

today that represents the worst possible deal you can make
uc .. we have alternatives
Paul

[Nominal Animal]

This is all very old news.
Intel was doing this kind of thing over a decade ago in consumer low end i3 systems, perhaps others.
I remember because it annoyed me then.
What was it called...oh, yeh... Intel Upgrade Service.

Which boiled down to "pay $50 afterwards to get the features you would have got if you had paid $15 more in the first place."

Like I said, it sounds to me like a salesdrone hoodwinked the PHBs into believing this would make money.

[PKTKS]

More 2 centos of greedy jambo shit

Please WINTEL ... just FUCKOFF!!!

Not only they will make you pay in full a crippled hardware...

But require that you have an ONLINE connection and monitored valid shit.. running all time

Please FUCKOFF!!!

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-SDSi-v2

Paul

[Haenk]

Well, digging around in my brain, I somehow remembered their previous attempt:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_Upgrade_Service

I wonder if people like that idea better now, now that 10 years have passed and everyone has forgotten about it...

[TomS_]

So  I am pretty confident that folks reading this will "trust" and believe
if these  competitive offers  are really fair deals..

It's hard to take you seriously when your arguments are presented the way they are. It's all conspiracy, and you provide no references to back up your claims.

You look just like any other nutter on Facebook etc trying to sell anti vax and anti 5G conspiracies.

So, no thanks.

[Monkeh]

More 2 centos of greedy jambo shit

Please WINTEL ... just FUCKOFF!!!

Not only they will make you pay in full a crippled hardware...

But require that you have an ONLINE connection and monitored valid shit.. running all time

Please FUCKOFF!!!

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-SDSi-v2

Paul

Nothing in that article or the childishly titled screenshot you secured from it supports your claim of 'online connection' and 'monitored valid shit'.

You feed it a certificate and payload, after a cold boot the functionality is enabled (presumably feeding it a different payload would allow to disable as well). You would not even need to load the driver once the required cert and payload are loaded, because everything happens at boot prior to OS, network, or even the RTC being available.

[PKTKS]

(..)
Nothing in that article or the childishly titled screenshot you secured from it supports your claim of 'online connection' and 'monitored valid shit'.

You feed it a certificate and payload, after a cold boot the functionality is enabled (presumably feeding it a different payload would allow to disable as well). You would not even need to load the driver once the required cert and payload are loaded, because everything happens at boot prior to OS, network, or even the RTC being available.

So *YOU*  say..  as usual.... to make me look like a funky idiot... 

Nothing supports your vague opinion that things will be
or should be like this.. in due time...

The very same way  they have pushed TPM as a KERNEL MODULE...
Things just sum up as experience teach us..
Other modules are being insanely pushed to the low level firmware... (binary blobs)

These folks were never reliable as so hope for the better..
prepare yourself for the odds.

2 cents of a dodgy veteran..

I always miss you monky 
Paul

[Monkeh]

So *YOU*  say..  as usual.... to make me look like a funky idiot... 

Nothing supports your vague opinion that things will be
or should be like this.. in due time...

Nothing other than the code and documentation they've sent upstream..

As usual, you're making yourself look like an idiot.

[PKTKS]

So *YOU*  say..  as usual.... to make me look like a funky idiot... 

Nothing supports your vague opinion that things will be
or should be like this.. in due time...

Nothing other than the code and documentation they've sent upstream..

As usual, you're making yourself look like an idiot.

Don't think so..

Things are summing up and converging a while to prepare
a full binary blob in kernel locked up devices...

INPUT methods.. so called  SECURITY gizmos..
and impossible to handle display firmwares..
and stuff..

Nothing really keeps mind at easy ..
I have already prepared a full change if required from
what seems to be a hostile take over on FOSS..

by using binary blobs like this and others..

Paul

[PKTKS]

It's hard to take you seriously when your arguments are presented the way they are. It's all conspiracy, and you provide no references to back up your claims.

You look just like any other nutter on Facebook etc trying to sell anti vax and anti 5G conspiracies.

So, no thanks.

It is called experience...

I deal with that kind of business over 4 decades..
they have VERTICAL CONTROL of the chain..

Pushing things like this are not mindless...
It just business..

May sound conspiracy .. actually it is just about having
control over the vertical chain...

They already have their own compiler ..
own binary blobs and proprietary firmware..

Soon things should clear on how that will translate
in business ..

As said above..

THEY ARE TRYING TO PUSH THIS.. DECADES SO FAR..

one more try..
Paul