On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:55:38 -0500, John McKown wrote: >On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 12:49:26 -0500, Tom Marchant wrote: > >>On Tue, 24 Mar 2009 11:36:42 -0500, John McKown wrote: >> >>>.... However, other companies, such as AMD, need cross >>>licensing to create chips which run x86. >> >>Do they? > >I am certain that AMD and Via have cross licensing agreements with Intel. I >know because Intel has recently indicated that AMD is violating that agreement. > >http://www.amd.com/us-en/Weblets/0,,7832_12670_12686,00.html
The only thing I see in the page like that is this: "In October 1991, Intel commenced a federal court action for copyright infringement. An arbitrator subsequently awarded AMD full rights to make and sell the Am386. The Supreme Court of California upheld this decision in 1994." Is that what you are talking about? > >> >>>That "cross licensing" is part of >>>IBM's complaint against PSI. PSI was not licensed to create a zArchitecture >>>emulator. >> >>I thought that the problem with PSI (and Hercules, for that matter) was not >>about the emulation of the hardware, but the licensing of z/OS. > > >Also, as I remember (Danger, Will Robinson!), part of IBM's argument was >that PSI's implementation of the z/Architecture was not verified by IBM. IBM >said that in that case, the use of licensed IBM software (z/OS et al.) could >not be guaranteed. However, much of IBM's "premium" for their software was >due to IBM's guarantees on the reliability of the software. If the hardware >was "not up to snuff", then IBM might suffer damage to its reputation for >reliability if the software (z/OS) were to fail. This was the "logic" as to >why IBM refused to license z/OS et al. on the PSI solution. And one of the factors that makes the 360/370/z et. al. reliable is the machine check interruption. Does the Itanium processor have that capability? I'm pretty sure that none of the x86 processors do. -- Tom Marchant ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: GET IBM-MAIN INFO Search the archives at http://bama.ua.edu/archives/ibm-main.html
