Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
If only Apple had had your insights into this, instead of them being completely taken by surprise; and now is definitely going bankrupt within 3.2 weeks.
Or… perhaps… and this is like the most crazy and complex conspiracy theory ever… Apple… and hang on to your hat here… actually knows stuff, and wouldn't completely bet their whole damn business on something like this.
I'm not saying they will go bankrupt. I am saying they will now have some organization either raising their price for licensing (possibly), or numerous court battles over patents, etc. Then they might be forced to "share" what they spent billions of dollars to develop.
You would have to examine the actual licensing agreements that Apple currently has in effect with ARM. You seem to be fearful that they are not well-constructed with regard to their future needs and/or might be vulnerable to legal exploitation. The sarcastic comment you’ve responded to here was trying to point out that Apple’s lawyers would have to be really bad at what they do for them to be exposed in the way you imagine. I don’t think IP licensing works the way you think it works.
One thing you may be missing is the fact that, despite its name, “Arm Holdings” isn’t just a patent-holder — they actively develop IP. They have a roadmap with advances ahead — to be profitable, they need Apple and everyone else to stay on board. They work closely with their customers and they are privy to industry secrets. That’s why it’s unlikely Apple would be able to buy them outright, or even Nvidia, really.
The history of Intel and AMD re: x86 64-bit instruction sets is instructive [!] — Intel went in a different direction, so AMD moved forward and did their own specification “AMD64” ... Apple could, if forced to, choose to break away from the ARM roadmap and pursue its own path. In the end, Intel and AMD came to a sort of cross-licensing agreement.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
OK. This is exactly where it is going. No one cares about Apple using its own chips for its own computers ... but people who use Apple computers. (And even then a tiny subset of people who use Apple computers. Most Apple computer users see their Macs as locked boxes and know/care less about their internals than Windows/Linux users. The same for iPhone/iPad owners versus Android device owners. They buy Apple products because they "just work" - and when they don't they just take advantage of Apple's legendary support - and do not have to think about the underlying technology.)
Seriously, who you think regards themselves as being in competition with Apple in the PC market? Nvidia? In what way? They don't manufacture PCs. They don't manufacture PC CPUs. And Apple doesn't even buy their GPUs for the vast majority of their products. So what on earth would Nvidia gain by denying Apple licenses for ARM and forcing Apple to continue using Intel? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
How about someone who actually makes PCs then? Dell. Dell buys ARM, keeps Apple from making ARM Macs. Guess what? Apple still keeps making Intel Macs. Apple's market share remains the same. And Dell keeps getting hammered by Lenovo. And Dell - who is already financially struggling from their failed VMWare purchase that they are going to have to write down billions from - will also have another worthless acquisition in ARM. Lenovo? More of the same. Virtually no one on this planet who would even think of buying a Mac would buy a Lenovo because they don't have the brand name that IBM once did. HP? Acer? Asus? Yeah, no. There aren't very many people who would say "will I buy a MacBook Pro or will I buy an Acer Predator?" either. (By "very many" I mean absolutely none.)
Um, no. It doesn't work that way. Despite your tautological pleonasmic trolling you should know that much.
You're good.
I had to google pleonasmic.
Even better, the phrase, “tautological pleonasmic trolling” is a pleonasm. Chef’s kiss.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
If only Apple had had your insights into this, instead of them being completely taken by surprise; and now is definitely going bankrupt within 3.2 weeks.
Or… perhaps… and this is like the most crazy and complex conspiracy theory ever… Apple… and hang on to your hat here… actually knows stuff, and wouldn't completely bet their whole damn business on something like this.
I'm not saying they will go bankrupt. I am saying they will now have some organization either raising their price for licensing (possibly), or numerous court battles over patents, etc. Then they might be forced to "share" what they spent billions of dollars to develop.
You would have to examine the actual licensing agreements that Apple currently has in effect with ARM. You seem to be fearful that they are not well-constructed with regard to their future needs and/or might be vulnerable to legal exploitation. The sarcastic comment you’ve responded to here was trying to point out that Apple’s lawyers would have to be really bad at what they do for them to be exposed in the way you imagine. I don’t think IP licensing works the way you think it works.
One thing you may be missing is the fact that, despite its name, “Arm Holdings” isn’t just a patent-holder — they actively develop IP. They have a roadmap with advances ahead — to be profitable, they need Apple and everyone else to stay on board. They work closely with their customers and they are privy to industry secrets. That’s why it’s unlikely Apple would be able to buy them outright, or even Nvidia, really.
The history of Intel and AMD re: x86 64-bit instruction sets is instructive [!] — Intel went in a different direction, so AMD moved forward and did their own specification “AMD64” ... Apple could, if forced to, choose to break away from the ARM roadmap and pursue its own path. In the end, Intel and AMD came to a sort of cross-licensing agreement.
This. Pretty much all of this, actually.
Rene Ritchie has been doing some great videos on the transition, and he left one cryptic comment in one of them that I hope he's going to expand on:
First, ARM has two different kinds of licenses. One is for chipset designs. You pay your fee, you take your Cortex cores or whatever, you get them fabbed, and you've got your CPUs. The other is an ISA license. With that, you get no chip design. None. All you get is the instruction set architecture. You have to roll the actual design yourself. And that's what Apple's been doing. Making their own custom designs that use the ARM instruction set. For years. Rumor has it Apple's license may let them get even more custom than that, but let's just leave it there for now.
Apple probably has the most expensive license from ARM, and the irony of that is that they get very little for it. It covers the spec for the instructions set, and a test suite, and that's it. You get no chip designs, no compiler tools, nothing. So the reason that it's the most expensive (aside from the fact that any company that is building its own architecture from scratch must have bloody deep pockets) is because it's pretty much gives the licensee the ability to do whatever they want for however long they want.
This is the point: when folk are saying that Apple has licensed the instruction set, all that really means is that Apple has the spec and the tests to make sure whatever they're doing complies with the ARM instruction set. That's all. It's up to Apple to make sure that their stuff passes the test suite. Why is that important?
Because (and this is what I think Ritchie is alluding to) I think that even saying that Apple's new chips are running pure ARM instructions may not be entirely true. I think they may be modifying the instruction set to optimise their architecture. But they're using the test suite to make sure that what they're doing doesn't break the ARM spec. Why? Because these new Macs will still need to run software that relies on low-level compatibility, like ARM Linux, Docker etc.
Anyway, the point I've drifted away from is this: as others have said, there is no way that Apple would put themselves into a situation where they could be forced to pay crippling license fees just because they're Apple. It's a lesson they've learned from dealing with Qualcomm, which will hopefully end if they can sort out their own comms architecture.
If ARM is taken over by a hostile party, then under Apple's agreement, trying to charge them more would be the same as Nissan buying out BMW then trying to charge BMW drivers more money for cars they'd already bought.
My thinking is that Apple has effectively bought a copy of the instruction set and they're now free to do whatever they want with it.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
OK. This is exactly where it is going. No one cares about Apple using its own chips for its own computers ... but people who use Apple computers. (And even then a tiny subset of people who use Apple computers. Most Apple computer users see their Macs as locked boxes and know/care less about their internals than Windows/Linux users. The same for iPhone/iPad owners versus Android device owners. They buy Apple products because they "just work" - and when they don't they just take advantage of Apple's legendary support - and do not have to think about the underlying technology.)
Seriously, who you think regards themselves as being in competition with Apple in the PC market? Nvidia? In what way? They don't manufacture PCs. They don't manufacture PC CPUs. And Apple doesn't even buy their GPUs for the vast majority of their products. So what on earth would Nvidia gain by denying Apple licenses for ARM and forcing Apple to continue using Intel? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
How about someone who actually makes PCs then? Dell. Dell buys ARM, keeps Apple from making ARM Macs. Guess what? Apple still keeps making Intel Macs. Apple's market share remains the same. And Dell keeps getting hammered by Lenovo. And Dell - who is already financially struggling from their failed VMWare purchase that they are going to have to write down billions from - will also have another worthless acquisition in ARM. Lenovo? More of the same. Virtually no one on this planet who would even think of buying a Mac would buy a Lenovo because they don't have the brand name that IBM once did. HP? Acer? Asus? Yeah, no. There aren't very many people who would say "will I buy a MacBook Pro or will I buy an Acer Predator?" either. (By "very many" I mean absolutely none.)
Um, no. It doesn't work that way. Despite your tautological pleonasmic trolling you should know that much.
You're good.
I had to google pleonasmic.
Select word, hard press or triple finger press your trackpad or right click and "look up x".
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
OK. This is exactly where it is going. No one cares about Apple using its own chips for its own computers ... but people who use Apple computers. (And even then a tiny subset of people who use Apple computers. Most Apple computer users see their Macs as locked boxes and know/care less about their internals than Windows/Linux users. The same for iPhone/iPad owners versus Android device owners. They buy Apple products because they "just work" - and when they don't they just take advantage of Apple's legendary support - and do not have to think about the underlying technology.)
Seriously, who you think regards themselves as being in competition with Apple in the PC market? Nvidia? In what way? They don't manufacture PCs. They don't manufacture PC CPUs. And Apple doesn't even buy their GPUs for the vast majority of their products. So what on earth would Nvidia gain by denying Apple licenses for ARM and forcing Apple to continue using Intel? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
How about someone who actually makes PCs then? Dell. Dell buys ARM, keeps Apple from making ARM Macs. Guess what? Apple still keeps making Intel Macs. Apple's market share remains the same. And Dell keeps getting hammered by Lenovo. And Dell - who is already financially struggling from their failed VMWare purchase that they are going to have to write down billions from - will also have another worthless acquisition in ARM. Lenovo? More of the same. Virtually no one on this planet who would even think of buying a Mac would buy a Lenovo because they don't have the brand name that IBM once did. HP? Acer? Asus? Yeah, no. There aren't very many people who would say "will I buy a MacBook Pro or will I buy an Acer Predator?" either. (By "very many" I mean absolutely none.)
Um, no. It doesn't work that way. Despite your tautological pleonasmic trolling you should know that much.
You're good.
I had to google pleonasmic.
Select word, hard press or triple finger press your trackpad or right click and "look up x".
I’m not as worried about Apple as I am about typical computer industry anticompetitive BS. How much good technology is made unavailable (archived in a vault just for meaningless ownership or potential future patent lawsuits), or outright ruined by laissez-faire capitalist greed & hoarding?
Some company could decide to remove ARM from the [future] equation.
Wall Street is bad for everyone that isn’t a privileged Wall Street addict, so “public ownership” isn’t good either.
Apparently ARM’s current ownership is full of opportunistic desire, otherwise why else is this even going on?
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
If only Apple had had your insights into this, instead of them being completely taken by surprise; and now is definitely going bankrupt within 3.2 weeks.
Or… perhaps… and this is like the most crazy and complex conspiracy theory ever… Apple… and hang on to your hat here… actually knows stuff, and wouldn't completely bet their whole damn business on something like this.
I'm not saying they will go bankrupt. I am saying they will now have some organization either raising their price for licensing (possibly), or numerous court battles over patents, etc. Then they might be forced to "share" what they spent billions of dollars to develop.
You would have to examine the actual licensing agreements that Apple currently has in effect with ARM. You seem to be fearful that they are not well-constructed with regard to their future needs and/or might be vulnerable to legal exploitation. The sarcastic comment you’ve responded to here was trying to point out that Apple’s lawyers would have to be really bad at what they do for them to be exposed in the way you imagine. I don’t think IP licensing works the way you think it works.
One could definitely argue that my approach isn't the most polite, but I do occasionally make a good point.
The important thing here is that if you see an obvious flaw made by what you have good reason to believe is a very smart and knowledgeable team of people, then odds are that you're missing something; and, in a situation like this, it might be some internal discussions and agreements the public won't even know about until maybe someone writes a memoir.
If it turns out that Apple get screwed by this transition, in just the way that Civa thought, then that still doesn't make Civa necessarily having been correct; it just means that things didn't play out the way that team of smart people thought most likely.
Which leaves us with one important question… How do you tell the difference between what was a smart move with an unlikely unfavourable outcome, and the straight up stupid moves?!
Mostly it comes down to looking at past performances. And, in this case, that tells us that Apple's game within this field is quite strong. So we either just accept that Apple most likely got this well thought out; or we actually find and read all past agreements/patents/whatever we can find, and comment based on that.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Huh? You're wondering why Apple would have a perpetual license for the AArch64 ISA from ARM Holdings that would still be in effect even If they were to be sold to someone who decided to stop licensing to Apple or to change the deal to something anticompetitive or otherwise unfavorable?
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Huh? You're wondering why Apple would have a perpetual license for the AArch64 ISA from ARM Holdings that would still be in effect even If they were to be sold to someone who decided to stop licensing to Apple or to change the deal to something anticompetitive or otherwise unfavorable?
What? Where did you get that from?
I'm asking what this perpetual license that Apple is supposed to have actually covers. The earlier claim was that Apple has a license for ARM technology because of their hand in developing it back in the late 80s. Ok, but the late 80s was well before the A64 instruction set extensions, so does the license cover that too, or is it just for the 32 bit ISA? If it does, great, and if not, is there a seperate licensing agreement for A64, and is that "perpetual" too?
Further to that, and applying to both cases, what does perpetual actually mean, is it revokable in any way? Does Apple have to pay or contribute anything to maintain the license, and is that open to disruption or further negotiation?
It would seem unusual for Apple to have a guaranteed, neverending license to use another companies technology, including future enhancements, without any cost or obligation.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Huh? You're wondering why Apple would have a perpetual license for the AArch64 ISA from ARM Holdings that would still be in effect even If they were to be sold to someone who decided to stop licensing to Apple or to change the deal to something anticompetitive or otherwise unfavorable?
What? Where did you get that from?
I'm asking what this perpetual license that Apple is supposed to have actually covers. The earlier claim was that Apple has a license for ARM technology because of their hand in developing it back in the late 80s. Ok, but the late 80s was well before the A64 instruction set extensions, so does the license cover that too, or is it just for the 32 bit ISA? If it does, great, and if not, is there a seperate licensing agreement for A64, and is that "perpetual" too?
Further to that, and applying to both cases, what does perpetual actually mean, is it revokable in any way? Does Apple have to pay or contribute anything to maintain the license, and is that open to disruption or further negotiation?
It would seem unusual for Apple to have a guaranteed, neverending license to use another companies technology, including future enhancements, without any cost or obligation.
The license will cover what it covers. If Apple build chips using the old ISA they may still have a license that would cover that. AArch64 would be a new license… which they have.
Imagine if you had a contract drawn up for licensing something you knew you were going to use for the indefinite future. Imagine that you also knew that the owner could sell the company to someone else. How would you proceed in making sure you had access to what you need regardless of who owned the ISA? I'd write in the terms of the deal and make it so that I could continue to have access regardless of who bought ARM Holdings so long as I paid an annual fee. Apple already has the ISA so they don't need ARM for anything else unless they make a breakthrough that benefits Apple. This is why Softbank buying ARM 4 years ago wasn't an issue and why it won't be an issue for any future
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Huh? You're wondering why Apple would have a perpetual license for the AArch64 ISA from ARM Holdings that would still be in effect even If they were to be sold to someone who decided to stop licensing to Apple or to change the deal to something anticompetitive or otherwise unfavorable?
What? Where did you get that from?
I'm asking what this perpetual license that Apple is supposed to have actually covers. The earlier claim was that Apple has a license for ARM technology because of their hand in developing it back in the late 80s. Ok, but the late 80s was well before the A64 instruction set extensions, so does the license cover that too, or is it just for the 32 bit ISA? If it does, great, and if not, is there a seperate licensing agreement for A64, and is that "perpetual" too?
Further to that, and applying to both cases, what does perpetual actually mean, is it revokable in any way? Does Apple have to pay or contribute anything to maintain the license, and is that open to disruption or further negotiation?
It would seem unusual for Apple to have a guaranteed, neverending license to use another companies technology, including future enhancements, without any cost or obligation.
The license will cover what it covers. If Apple build chips using the old ISA they may still have a license that would cover that. AArch64 would be a new license… which they have.
Imagine if you had a contract drawn up for licensing something you knew you were going to use for the indefinite future. Imagine that you also knew that the owner could sell the company to someone else. How would you proceed in making sure you had access to what you need regardless of who owned the ISA? I'd write in the terms of the deal and make it so that I could continue to have access regardless of who bought ARM Holdings so long as I paid an annual fee. Apple already has the ISA so they don't need ARM for anything else unless they make a breakthrough that benefits Apple. This is why Softbank buying ARM 4 years ago wasn't an issue and why it won't be an issue for any future
That’s a lot of words to not even attempt to answer my question and say precisely nothing of any value.
You could’ve just said “I don’t know”, that would’ve been fine.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Huh? You're wondering why Apple would have a perpetual license for the AArch64 ISA from ARM Holdings that would still be in effect even If they were to be sold to someone who decided to stop licensing to Apple or to change the deal to something anticompetitive or otherwise unfavorable?
What? Where did you get that from?
I'm asking what this perpetual license that Apple is supposed to have actually covers. The earlier claim was that Apple has a license for ARM technology because of their hand in developing it back in the late 80s. Ok, but the late 80s was well before the A64 instruction set extensions, so does the license cover that too, or is it just for the 32 bit ISA? If it does, great, and if not, is there a seperate licensing agreement for A64, and is that "perpetual" too?
Further to that, and applying to both cases, what does perpetual actually mean, is it revokable in any way? Does Apple have to pay or contribute anything to maintain the license, and is that open to disruption or further negotiation?
It would seem unusual for Apple to have a guaranteed, neverending license to use another companies technology, including future enhancements, without any cost or obligation.
The license will cover what it covers. If Apple build chips using the old ISA they may still have a license that would cover that. AArch64 would be a new license… which they have.
Imagine if you had a contract drawn up for licensing something you knew you were going to use for the indefinite future. Imagine that you also knew that the owner could sell the company to someone else. How would you proceed in making sure you had access to what you need regardless of who owned the ISA? I'd write in the terms of the deal and make it so that I could continue to have access regardless of who bought ARM Holdings so long as I paid an annual fee. Apple already has the ISA so they don't need ARM for anything else unless they make a breakthrough that benefits Apple. This is why Softbank buying ARM 4 years ago wasn't an issue and why it won't be an issue for any future
That’s a lot of words to not even attempt to answer my question and say precisely nothing of any value.
You could’ve just said “I don’t know”, that would’ve been fine.
I do know, and I said as much. What I didn't do is supply some simplistic contract worded in some way that will prove to you what is obvious to others. I know that it makes no sense to have decades long plan for designing chips that can be removed at a moment's notice by some other company coming in to hurt Apple. This is how such contracts are designed. This isn't new or complex, even if the legalese is. If you still feel that Apple could, say, be up shits creek by Intel coming in and buying ARM Holdings just to shutter its doors so everyone is forced to use their awful mobile chips then you need to answer why they never did that. Altruism? Think again.
Okay, this is gong exactly where I thought it would go.
Apple announces they are completely switching architecture.
Softbank suddenly decides to sell ARM Holdings.
A competitor swoops in to pull the rug out from under Apple
Nope, Apple has as far as I remember a perpetual far reaching cross license agreement; remember, Apple co-developed the architecture, which is why they don’t need to buy ARM.
Are we sure that this applies to AArch64? As I understand it, that's a different ISA and Apple didn't have any hand in developing it.
I don't think Apple had a hand in the 64bit architecture; they'd pretty much gone their own way by then. But for the instruction set, the agreement is perpetual, and that's all Apple really cares about.
But A64 is a different instruction set. What does Apple have a perpetual license for?
Huh? You're wondering why Apple would have a perpetual license for the AArch64 ISA from ARM Holdings that would still be in effect even If they were to be sold to someone who decided to stop licensing to Apple or to change the deal to something anticompetitive or otherwise unfavorable?
What? Where did you get that from?
I'm asking what this perpetual license that Apple is supposed to have actually covers. The earlier claim was that Apple has a license for ARM technology because of their hand in developing it back in the late 80s. Ok, but the late 80s was well before the A64 instruction set extensions, so does the license cover that too, or is it just for the 32 bit ISA? If it does, great, and if not, is there a seperate licensing agreement for A64, and is that "perpetual" too?
Further to that, and applying to both cases, what does perpetual actually mean, is it revokable in any way? Does Apple have to pay or contribute anything to maintain the license, and is that open to disruption or further negotiation?
It would seem unusual for Apple to have a guaranteed, neverending license to use another companies technology, including future enhancements, without any cost or obligation.
The license will cover what it covers. If Apple build chips using the old ISA they may still have a license that would cover that. AArch64 would be a new license… which they have.
Imagine if you had a contract drawn up for licensing something you knew you were going to use for the indefinite future. Imagine that you also knew that the owner could sell the company to someone else. How would you proceed in making sure you had access to what you need regardless of who owned the ISA? I'd write in the terms of the deal and make it so that I could continue to have access regardless of who bought ARM Holdings so long as I paid an annual fee. Apple already has the ISA so they don't need ARM for anything else unless they make a breakthrough that benefits Apple. This is why Softbank buying ARM 4 years ago wasn't an issue and why it won't be an issue for any future
That’s a lot of words to not even attempt to answer my question and say precisely nothing of any value.
You could’ve just said “I don’t know”, that would’ve been fine.
I do know, and I said as much. What I didn't do is supply some simplistic contract worded in some way that will prove to you what is obvious to others. I know that it makes no sense to have decades long plan for designing chips that can be removed at a moment's notice by some other company coming in to hurt Apple. This is how such contracts are designed. This isn't new or complex, even if the legalese is. If you still feel that Apple could, say, be up shits creek by Intel coming in and buying ARM Holdings just to shutter its doors so everyone is forced to use their awful mobile chips then you need to answer why they never did that. Altruism? Think again.
Many reasons I'd imagine, antritrust being the major one, and the cost being the other. Not sure what you think you've proved there.
But again you're off on a fantasy flight of things I didn't say. I'm just wondering what license Apple actually has, and keeping the speculation to a minimum.
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One thing you may be missing is the fact that, despite its name, “Arm Holdings” isn’t just a patent-holder — they actively develop IP. They have a roadmap with advances ahead — to be profitable, they need Apple and everyone else to stay on board. They work closely with their customers and they are privy to industry secrets. That’s why it’s unlikely Apple would be able to buy them outright, or even Nvidia, really.
This.
Pretty much all of this, actually.
Rene Ritchie has been doing some great videos on the transition, and he left one cryptic comment in one of them that I hope he's going to expand on:
https://www.imore.com/mac-moving-apple-silicon-not-arm
Apple probably has the most expensive license from ARM, and the irony of that is that they get very little for it. It covers the spec for the instructions set, and a test suite, and that's it. You get no chip designs, no compiler tools, nothing. So the reason that it's the most expensive (aside from the fact that any company that is building its own architecture from scratch must have bloody deep pockets) is because it's pretty much gives the licensee the ability to do whatever they want for however long they want.
This is the point: when folk are saying that Apple has licensed the instruction set, all that really means is that Apple has the spec and the tests to make sure whatever they're doing complies with the ARM instruction set. That's all. It's up to Apple to make sure that their stuff passes the test suite. Why is that important?
Because (and this is what I think Ritchie is alluding to) I think that even saying that Apple's new chips are running pure ARM instructions may not be entirely true. I think they may be modifying the instruction set to optimise their architecture. But they're using the test suite to make sure that what they're doing doesn't break the ARM spec. Why? Because these new Macs will still need to run software that relies on low-level compatibility, like ARM Linux, Docker etc.
https://semiaccurate.com/2013/08/07/a-long-look-at-how-arm-licenses-chips/
Anyway, the point I've drifted away from is this: as others have said, there is no way that Apple would put themselves into a situation where they could be forced to pay crippling license fees just because they're Apple. It's a lesson they've learned from dealing with Qualcomm, which will hopefully end if they can sort out their own comms architecture.
If ARM is taken over by a hostile party, then under Apple's agreement, trying to charge them more would be the same as Nissan buying out BMW then trying to charge BMW drivers more money for cars they'd already bought.
My thinking is that Apple has effectively bought a copy of the instruction set and they're now free to do whatever they want with it.
Heh. Good word.
Exactly.
Some company could decide to remove ARM from the [future] equation.
Wall Street is bad for everyone that isn’t a privileged Wall Street addict, so “public ownership” isn’t good either.
Apparently ARM’s current ownership is full of opportunistic desire, otherwise why else is this even going on?
The important thing here is that if you see an obvious flaw made by what you have good reason to believe is a very smart and knowledgeable team of people, then odds are that you're missing something; and, in a situation like this, it might be some internal discussions and agreements the public won't even know about until maybe someone writes a memoir.
If it turns out that Apple get screwed by this transition, in just the way that Civa thought, then that still doesn't make Civa necessarily having been correct; it just means that things didn't play out the way that team of smart people thought most likely.
Which leaves us with one important question… How do you tell the difference between what was a smart move with an unlikely unfavourable outcome, and the straight up stupid moves?!
Mostly it comes down to looking at past performances. And, in this case, that tells us that Apple's game within this field is quite strong. So we either just accept that Apple most likely got this well thought out; or we actually find and read all past agreements/patents/whatever we can find, and comment based on that.
I'm asking what this perpetual license that Apple is supposed to have actually covers. The earlier claim was that Apple has a license for ARM technology because of their hand in developing it back in the late 80s. Ok, but the late 80s was well before the A64 instruction set extensions, so does the license cover that too, or is it just for the 32 bit ISA? If it does, great, and if not, is there a seperate licensing agreement for A64, and is that "perpetual" too?
Further to that, and applying to both cases, what does perpetual actually mean, is it revokable in any way? Does Apple have to pay or contribute anything to maintain the license, and is that open to disruption or further negotiation?
It would seem unusual for Apple to have a guaranteed, neverending license to use another companies technology, including future enhancements, without any cost or obligation.
Imagine if you had a contract drawn up for licensing something you knew you were going to use for the indefinite future. Imagine that you also knew that the owner could sell the company to someone else. How would you proceed in making sure you had access to what you need regardless of who owned the ISA? I'd write in the terms of the deal and make it so that I could continue to have access regardless of who bought ARM Holdings so long as I paid an annual fee. Apple already has the ISA so they don't need ARM for anything else unless they make a breakthrough that benefits Apple. This is why Softbank buying ARM 4 years ago wasn't an issue and why it won't be an issue for any future
You could’ve just said “I don’t know”, that would’ve been fine.
But again you're off on a fantasy flight of things I didn't say. I'm just wondering what license Apple actually has, and keeping the speculation to a minimum.