Release the lawyers!

[Eric Dunbar]

On 6/7/05, Benj. Mako Hill <mako at ubuntu.com> wrote:
> <quote who="John Levin" date="2005-06-06 18:56:10 +0100">
> > With the announcement that Apple is moving over to Intel chips, there
> > is going to be an emulation layer for ppc-compiled apps, called:
> >
> > Rosetta
> >
> > Wonder if it comes with a nice round, circular figure divided into
> > three?
> 
> Rosetta is, as one can imagine, a pretty common name for things that
> do translation of one sort or another. There are loads of other pieces
> of software that are called Rosetta in whole or in part.
> 
> Apple has a history of being nasty about their trademarks but I think
> we can defer this particular issue to Ptolemy V who, if I'm not
> mistaken, got there before any of us. ;)

Another voice :)

[steering the conversation onto a tanget]

I've seen a bit of whinging on some boards about how Apple often
inflicts sudden and dramatic changes on its users on a regular basis
(Mac OS 6-7, 68K to PPC, RS232 to USB, SCSI to FireWire, Mac OS 9 to
OS X, and, now PPC to i86).

I can see obvious drawbacks to this strategy (change is rarely
welcomed and can cost), but the benefits most certainly outweigh the
drawbacks.

Slowly 'evolving' technology results in some pretty inefficient
cludges. A lot of processing power is devoted in PIV to supporting old
code (086, 286, 386, 486) that could otherwise be put to good use. A
friend of mine who once upon a time worked for Motorolla on the G4 QA
team (he saw the writing on the wall four years ago and switched out
of Moto's G3/4 dep't ;-) described the difference between Motorola and
Intel thusly: Motorola has markedly superior design crews for their
chips, but Intel is much better at squeezing raw speed out of their
plants. If you could put the two strategies together you'd get amazing
results (AMD has licenced quite a bit of Motorola's design expertise
and also has its own highly skilled chemists and physicists... which
is why they can go head-to-head with Intel and beat them sometimes ;-)

Eric.