Re: Source Code Secrecy

[Simon Cooke <simonc@jumper.org.uk>]

From: Mike A. Harris <mharris@ican.net>
To: Multiple recipients of list AM-INFO <am-info@essential.org>
Sent: Saturday, January 09, 1999 1:21 AM
Subject: Re: Source Code Secrecy


>On Sat, 22 Aug 1998, P.A. Petricone wrote:
>
>>> >Do you really know what folks like Linus are doing?
>>> 
>>> I don't think many people know what Linus is doing these days.  Isn't
he
>>> working for a company whose project is a rather closely guarded
secret?
>>
>>Correct. P. Allen is involved in the operation. I think they are looking
>>at how much code can be committed to silicon. If they get it right,
>>there will be a lot fewer of these discussions.
>
>Transmeta filed a patent recently, and if you read it, it is for
>some kind of VLIW'ish processor that can emulate other
>architecure's instruction sets in hardware via some sort of
>hardware morphing.  In esscence it seems like the new chip will
>be able to run Intel code, and possibly alpha/sparc/whatever code
>as well.  Check back issues of slashdot for details, or visit
>IBM's patent website. 
>
>

Interesting.... I'll check the patent, but this sounds decidedly similar
to a friend of mine's postgraduate work in Glasgow, where he designed a
calculator on an FPGA chip, which would rewrite its innards for each
different operation.

I hope this isn't yet another broad patent that treads heavily on the toes
of prior art.

Simon (Not speaking for Microsoft - my views are my own)