Topic: Overt AsicBoost Released today? - page 2. (Read 1730 times)

I completely agree with what you are saying, was just speculating on ways things could play out. The overall contract implied here doesn't represent a balanced trade, nor do the implications of backing out of the agreement hold a fair "punishment" for exiting the agreement. These items would have to be addressed in detail before entering the agreement.

I can't imagine why any company would sign into this agreement anyways but if they were so inclined; there would need to be a level of openness prior to releasing all your patents. For example this Asicboost, it's still early but given what I've been reading it still isn't performing as expected (Though not enough samples are in the wild to confirm this). If it doesn't live up to expectation any other party should be able to walk away with their patent rights.

Prior to openly pledging support there should also be a set fee structure in place for what you would have to pay to use any of the competitors patents. At the same time each of these companies should be able to limit how long you have free access to their "original" patents should they walk away; as well as you retaining free access to all patents you brought to the table in the first place.

Overall it's a terrible system set up to create an oligarchy instead of using competition to drive innovation. These companies will dictate among themselves the marketshare for each and will pummel any small outside producer who try's to break into the system.

Can you imagine these companies locked into this for the long haul this early into the life of Bitcoin?

The issue here isn't so much whether the incumbents would get to "coast" on the back of the newcomers' R&D, should the newcomers even decide to invest in their own R&D. In fact, the way the BDPL is currently set up actually incentivizes the opposite — the newcomers would be a lot better off simply leaching off the incumbents' patents and resources. And if the incumbents decide to simply stop developing because of the burden of spoon-feeding the other BDPL users, everyone loses, because the entire BDPL pool of developers and manufacturers would grind to a halt. They would all then very soon be overtaken by non-BDPL developers and manufacturers. In other words, it would be far better for the incumbents to have never joined the BDPL in the first place.

The issue here instead is that should any company choose to leave the BDPL, they remain obliged to license their patents to BDPL users for free, while the BDPL users would then be allowed to impose additional terms on the leaving companies for their continued use of BDPL patents. This isn't just unfair, it's extortion.

I have 2 things I find funny here.
1) It definitely screws over the companies that have poured a massive amount of time and effort into their R&D at first. This is done by providing the new guy with all your secrets; this just isn't done anywhere.
So I don't know why BDPL, thinks it needs to be implemented in this environment specifically to "democratize" blockchain technology.

Really though at a certain point your trade secrets are stolen on the first models that ship to the world. It's tore down and reverse engineered and changed just enough to avoid a lawsuit.

2) In the end this up and coming company then proceeds to strive for continual improvement investing their funds into R&D. Now the older companies can effectively sit on their heels and let the new patents pour in. It's not a great long term strategy but if someone else is going to put in the work and you already have the "Brand power" to coast why wouldn't you.
This is the outcome I would expect from the given example of a company choosing to leave; as opposed to them paying to use Patents they didn't deem worthy on the off chance the next development is better.

Overall short term it's a no brainer for Halong to pledge their patents; access to all those secrets for the cost of only a few words.

Much like communism being great in theory; this is an idea that on paper seems great but is a legal and logistical nightmare that isn't worth the headache for larger established companies.
The best case scenario for this project would be the smaller ASIC producers joining, and thus helping themselves push advancements and creating their own "Brand Power" to chisel more of the market share in their favor.

Thanks for the new topics to read up on gave me something to do this evening.

Coming from a miner currently running >300TH/s-- YES.

1. The latest 16nm miners still have long legs left and depending on your power cost will be good to run at least another year or more. I easily see the latest A841's I've picked up being good for at least 2.

2. As expected by those who work in the semiconductor industries outside of this mad market, moving to lower nodes do NOT in-turn make dramatic improvements in mining chip performance. So far there very little to no advantage in power eff being seen. The Halong T1 miner uses 10nm chips and even with its AB is so far showing to be - meh. Ebang's 10nm miner actually has worse efficiency than their 16nm miner has.

3. As a miner wanting to get maximum life out of my equipment, the longer delay before truly faster/more efficient gear hits the market the better. Helps slow down the diff rise at least a little.

Technology advancement.  Thats what I'm for.  Thats the only way that blockchain will prevail.  However it gets there, as long as it does and nobody gets burned, I'm okay with it.  So yall are saying that you would rather have waited another 6-9 months for a 10nm asic boosted miner to be available?

You had me at "disagree"

Frodo, for that!

That is precisely how I feel about Halong's patent and it's being BDPL along with an excellent and on-point dissection of what a company joining the BDPL pool would mean to said company.

To the best of anyone's knowledge Halong's version of AB is all they have to offer. Their "you get to use our 1 patent (and any ancillary IP we may or may not have invented/refined) in return for you giving us (and all BDPL pool members) access to ALL of your IP. Oh btw: You also have to release all of your suppliers from any restrictions, NDA's, sales agreements, etc as well" is insanely 1-sided in their favor. Your line "one carrot in exchange for a thousand pieces of gold" is a spot-on description for what BDPL is to Halong.

As an Engineer and systems designer with a few Patents to my name I categorically state that it stinks to high heaven like the huge steaming it is.

edit: Interesting that the BDPL Users List so far has only Halong and 1 other company (Little Dragon Technology LLC) on it. Ta boot, The required BDPL Offering Page for Halong dated March 6, 2018 states "Licensor does not have any patent at this time".

edit edit: Today forum user Dr. Mann wrote in the Halong thread (color emphasis mine):
So the gist of that is despite everyone calling it 'Halong's patent' - it isn't actually theirs unless it turns out that Halong Mining and Little Dragon Technology LLC are actually owned by the same (unknown) folks. That then leads back to Little Dragon and their BDPL AsicBoost actually being a means for Halong to gain IP they want/need and don't feel like developing themselves.

Fully polarized interesting.

One) the gear needs to show it can do 10-20 better then the s-9 or the 841.

So far more hash more power used and very close to 0.10 watts a gh

And limited to two pools.  At these numbers not good and not worth modding your pool or buying.

Pretty much a bust.

Now if it tweaks with firmware and goes to 16th and 1425 watts it will cause issues.

I disagree. Halong's method of choice for patenting their implementation of AsicBoost — the Blockchain Defensive Patent License (BDPL) — actually sets the stage for further centralization of mining technology, and not the converse as advertised by Halong and the BDPL's website.

Under the first question of the BDPL website's FAQ page — "How do you benefit by using the BDPL?" — it is stated that in return for immunity from patent-related lawsuits from other BDPL users, each BDPL user receives "royalty-free licenses from every other user's patent portfolio." This looks great at first glance on its surface, because it seems to encourage technology-sharing and prevents any one BDPL user from being a patent troll.

However, upon closer inspection, the BDPL begins to look more and more like a very cleverly disguised weapon designed to obtain competitors' valuable intellectual property for free, and then snuff them out.

We know that Halong now has their implementation of AsicBoost patented under the BDPL. If then, for example, Canaan wants to use Halong's implementation of AsicBoost, Canaan would have to join the BDPL and license all of their patented intellectual property to Halong (and other BDPL users) for free. In effect, Canaan gets AsicBoost, and Halong gets access to all of Canaan's patented technology, on which Canaan had previously spent millions, if not billions, in prior research and development. The playing field between Halong and Canaan has now been leveled, but at Canaan's expense. (It may be argued here that Canaan also has access to Halong's portfolio of patented technology under the BDPL, but at this point it is reasonable to assume that Halong doesn't have anything else to offer that is of competitive value. The BDPL only works if the playing field was already level to begin with.)

Things get worse from here. If, in the above example, Canaan now decides to pull all of their patents from the BDPL, Halong still gets to keep licensing all of Canaan's patents for free. Halong, on the other hand, is now allowed under the BDPL to impose additional terms ("fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms (FRAND)" according to the BDPL's website, whatever that means) on Canaan for Canaan's continued licensing of Halong's patents. In other words, Halong now gets to use Canaan's patented technology for free, while Canaan has to pay Halong to use Halong's patented technology, in addition to whatever terms that Halong may now impose on Canaan at Halong's discretion. Again, Halong wins at Canaan's expense. If Canaan hasn't already been forced to shutter their doors at this point, they may soon have to, due to them being placed at such a competitive disadvantage as a result of the BDPL's terms.

This is but one slice of how the BDPL is designed to unfairly benefit startups like Halong — startups who dangle one carrot in exchange for a thousand pieces of gold. A better and more equitable way of democratizing access to mining technology would be to release them under one of the many free and open-source software and hardware licenses.

So no, we are not better off today than if Halong and the BDPL never came along. We may actually have regressed far more than we realize.

Its been so long ago that I kind of remember them saying being fully funded but not sure.  But I almost guarantee that the only full funds they had were for the chips and first pre production run and maybe small batch, and rest of money was allotted for NRE.  If I had to write a conspiracy theory book about the whole ordeal I would guess that the principles had a good chunk of cash, had the connects to get relationship with samsung and contracted innosilicon to do R&D.  Pretty sure they had no choice to do pre-sale.  Behind the scenes of the business is rarely seen, and AB prevented much of anything, so pretty much nothing at all is what we got.  Not saying they were right, but saying in their shoes with limited resources as everyone has, it was probably the only way to get miners to the market.  So you either do it the way they did, or you never get off the ground because you ran out of cash.  I think positives of increasing technology to the market outweighs the negatives of forum speak.  Has anyone gotten hurt?  Did anyone lose their money?  I think we are all still better off today than if they never came along.....

That is exactly what I am saying.
As you said, doing public pre-sales sets a huge milestone that MUST be met regardless of how the technology co-operates. ref the fallout from BFL's Monarchs and Bitmine.ch/AMT A1 Coincraft miners. Unfortunately input from the Engineering side of many companies - not only those involved in crypto - is ignored once the Marketing group is unleashed. In the crypto mining business pre-sales translates to anything from 'we have this idea...' (ala the GMO vaporware) to Halong's 'we have some engineering test rigs built and running' (but still a work in progress and not ready for Prime Time).

Much to their credit Canaan and yes even the 'evil' Bitmain never did that. They stay quiet while developing and once factory production trials start only then announce upcoming products.

In the beginning of their thread Halong specifically stated that they were fully funded all the way through to at least pre-production trial runs and "we have no need of further funding via pre-orders". Then went on with their spiel never to this day saying *why* they did pre-orders.

As both an engineer and a miner manufacturer, I have refused to take a single dollar in presales without having first distributed several working prototypes to well-established people for public critique.

Never ask for money without working units in hand, and if you have working units in hand never ask for money until they've been verified by independent parties.

Never send money to someone who hasn't had independent parties verify their working units.

Are you saying that if you were in their shoes, had spent the so called millions on development, had working units in hand and a pretty good feeling about success rate of the design based on experience, that you wouldn't have tried to do presale?  As an Engineer, I hate pre-sale stuff as much as the next guy because in reality, at that point it isn't ready. And then you have a time limit your final R&D phases have to be restricted by.  I could probably argue both ways, sure business sense wise and the optics was not good, however, I can't say that if I were in their shoes that I wouldn't be one of the first to want to hawk my 'wares ASAP.  In the end its about the miner and not about the launch PR, or lack thereof.  I'd much rather them focus on getting the hardware right than trying to quiet down the peanut gallery.

By not following almost every page from "Scamming for Dummies" and being an honest and open company.
1) NOT doing pre-order sales at all
2) providing verifiable business contacts and company information
3) NOT implementing their version of AB as an all or nothing feature which would let the market decide if AB is a good thing or not. So far the T1 performance compared to the s9 and A841 is -- meh.

Probably mention, without specifics, that the control code uses a non-standard stratum implementation that's currently only available at one pool but they're working with other pool operators to patch in support.

Can complain all we want about them not advertising that it works on certain pools, but don't you guys realize that the only reason they didn't was to hide AB implementation, which was obviously withheld for legal reasons?  Kinda hard for them to disclose that info ahead of time without letting cat out of the bag.  In due time, I would bet all the pools will support AB and this whole point will be moot.  How would you guys have handled it differently?

IANAL in general, moreover IANA patent L, but I used to sit next one at the table during conferences and lunches.

The way they explained it to me that the history of US jurisprudence and legal precedents make it easier to defend a "device patent" against any sort of infringing "emulation" or alternative "embodiment" than vice-versa or any other combination in-between. Basically, if you think that your understanding of English grammar and Boolean algebra is sufficient to understand the patent, you are sorely mistaken. If your experience of patenting is only as far as getting it granted by the USPTO then you have less than half of the required knowledge.

Patent lawyers are so well paid, because they known the best combination of claims that's easiest to get approved and hardest to overturn in litigation.

Yeah that part's kinda crap. Hopefully some more decent pools implement compatibility, now that CK and such have done most of the legwork.

I *do* find it odd that Intel makes specific mention in point 15 and later in the filing go into great detail about BTC mining. Possibly as a cover-all-bases approach and response to Halong?

I would think they are also targeting the myrid of other blockchain applications such as ledgers of Public Records. Don't forget that their FPGA division (formerly Altera?) is pushing their tech like crazy for blockchain processing.

re the Intel patent, in USPO filings I've done they are rather picky about differentiating between a physical device or assembly vs what would better be described as a Method or a Process.. Given heavy mention is made of it being a SoC along with:

Sounds like a description of a physical hardware/chip/SOC or such to me.

Back to the main point here, aside from the nature of Halong's patent my major problem with their approach is that their gear MUST be pointed at an AB-enabled pool or it just does not even connect. That is most definitely something that should have been clearly stated when they started pre-order sales.

Ya know. The not-so minor omission that unlike every other previous BTC miner made, you cannot connect them to any mining pool you want or even Core unless the pool/Core are patched to work with AB.

edit: wording change to par.1 to reflect further reading of the patent.

I read some reports from people reverse-engineering Bitmain's firmware. According to them the AB is not only switchable on/off but also allows variable levels of boosting.

I wouldn't make that inference for any patent in the USA, probably even for most of the world. In my understanding the use of "device" abstraction is a method of strengthening the patent against counter-claims, not anything technical or technological.

I think you are needlessly conflating two separate things:

1) legalistic maneuvering related to patents and their licensing

2) deception and disinformation tactics like "covert AB"

They are only very loosely related and untangling the two is the key to understanding the situation.

It seems like a lot of bitcoiners had fallen into believing their own bullshit and now have hard time returning back to reality.

I think the company 21e6 (now 21.co ?) was a good early example of what happens when you believe your own propaganda. Their "Bitcoin Computer" was utterly non-competitive because it included some complicated DRM logic to guarantee coinbase payment address. If you think that Intel is somehow above making such a strategically stupid mistake, all I have to do is to remind you about Itanium and their completely unfounded in reality claims about advances in compilation technology.