To clarify, rather than over-shooting and never finishing everything,
I think we should develop the simulator as a sequence of progressively
more sophisticated working simulators.  Start with some thing minimal
and then add to it incrementally.

On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 9:06 PM, Xiaohan Ma <[email protected]> wrote:
> C model?
>
> You may want to combine these two steps as one step.
>
> Xiaohan
>
> On May 27, 2012, at 5:56 PM, Timothy Normand Miller <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Making a roadmap may be a sensible idea, but we don't need slides.  We
>> just need a list somewhere.  But let's keep it narrow.  I think the
>> roadmap should be:
>>
>> 1.  Develop a simple GPU simulator.
>> 2.  Develop a more sophisticated GPU simulator.
>>
>> We'll leave the rest for later.
>>
>> On Sun, May 27, 2012 at 7:12 PM, Ma, Xiaohan <[email protected]> wrote:
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> I totally agree with this big picture you proposed - as I described in my
>>> previous email.
>>>
>>> Would you please make some slides to summarize your ideas (probably some
>>> brief schedules and plans for the project you want to do in future - in
>>> outline)? So then all the guys in this thread can easily discuss and request
>>> modifications of your plan. The finalized slide deck will be the initial
>>> roadmap for us later.
>>>
>>> Thanks,
>>> Xiaohan
>>>
>>> 2012/5/27 Timothy Normand Miller <[email protected]>
>>>>
>>>> I'm not trying to start an argument as to whether or not "intellectual
>>>> property" is real.  Maybe I'll blog about that some time.  :)  I
>>>> nevertheless need to point out that being an employee of a State
>>>> University of New York binds be in certain ways.
>>>>
>>>> http://research.binghamton.edu/Innovation/IntellectualProperty.php
>>>>
>>>> The bottom line for me is that I need to stay far away from any
>>>> cash-flow that might occur.  And regarding the IP owned by Traversal,
>>>> Traversal is defunct, and the IP ownership fell back to me, Howard,
>>>> and Andy.  We're ready to transfer that, and some responsible
>>>> facilitator(s) need(s) to take ownership (literal or figurative) and
>>>> see where the project can leverage it.  I think that there needs to
>>>> still be some centralized entity who can relicense the IP without
>>>> having to ask permission from 1000 contributors.
>>>>
>>>> So, on to what the OGP can do...
>>>>
>>>> ARM has cornered the market on energy-efficient CPUs.  And ARM is
>>>> entirely fabless.  Maybe the OGP can corner the market on
>>>> energy-efficient GPUs.  The design would be dual-licensed GPL and
>>>> commercial, where for production purposes, all GPL viral-like
>>>> characteristics can be stripped in exchange for money, with the
>>>> understanding that breaking binary compatibility with the open design
>>>> (thereby potentially creating a closed architecture) will cost a LOT
>>>> more to license.  Our chosen facilitator would handle the money and
>>>> fund whatever seems useful to fund.  Mostly prototype hardware,
>>>> reference designs, donations to other projects, etc.  Linux Fund took
>>>> over the Open Hardware Foundation, so we can use that.
>>>>
>>>> Of course, most companies that set out, a priori, to be fabless and
>>>> license IP for profit tend to fail disastrously.  But we're not trying
>>>> to sustain a company on this.  Indeed, the profit margin would have to
>>>> be painfully small in order to be the least bit competitive anyhow.
>>>> Our objective is to put a completely open GPU design out on the
>>>> market, and that isn't necessarily profitable.
>>>>
>>>> So just for fun and science, let's see what we can design.  André
>>>> Pouliot and Kenneth Østby spec'd out a GPU shader engine design called
>>>> OGA2.  Let's start there.  The first thing to do is my favorite part,
>>>> which is to argue about architectural design decisions.  Then we make
>>>> a C-based prototype to determine functional efficiency, then we code
>>>> it in Verilog and synthesize it for gate-level synthesis so we can
>>>> judge energy efficiency.
>>>>
>>>> Think about leveraging the brainpower of the FOSS community to design
>>>> a GPU that outperforms and is more energy-efficient than PowerVR.  A
>>>> compelling-enough design would get market penetration.  Eventually, it
>>>> would make its way from embedded systems into desktop systems and
>>>> supercomputers (GPGPU, etc.), and we would all benefit from having an
>>>> open architecture dominate in graphics.
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> Timothy Normand Miller
>>>> http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti
>>>> Open Graphics Project
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>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Timothy Normand Miller
>> http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti
>> Open Graphics Project



-- 
Timothy Normand Miller
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~millerti
Open Graphics Project
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