REPORT: Arm is sensationally canceling the license that allowed Qualcomm to make Snapdragon chips which power everything from Microsoft's Copilot+ PCs to Samsung's Galaxy smartphones and tablets

Hopefully Qualcomm takes the hint and takes this opportunity to develop a high performance RISC V core. Don't just give the extortionists more money, break free and use an open standard. Instruction sets shouldn't even require licensing to begin with if APIs aren't copyrightable. Why is it OK to make your own implentation of any software API (see Oracle vs. Google on the Java API, Wine implementing the Windows API, etc) but not OK to do the same thing with an instruction set (which is just a hardware API). Why is writing an ARM or x86 emulator fine but not making your own chip? Why are FPGA emulator systems legal if instruction sets are protected? It makes no sense.

The other acceptable outcome here is a Qualcomm vs. ARM lawsuit that sets a precedence that instruction sets are not protected. If they want to copyright their own cores and sell the core design fine, but Qualcomm is making their own in house designs here.

takes this opportunity to develop a high performance RISC V core

They might. This would never be open sourced though. Best case scenario is the boost they would provide to the ISA as a whole by having a company as big as Qualcomm backing it.
- RISC V is just an open standard set of instructions and their encodings. It is not expected nor required for implementations of RISC V to be open sourced, but if they do make a RISC V chip they don't have to pay anyone to have that privilege and the chip will be compatible with other RISC V chips because it is an open and standardized instruction set. That's the point. Qualcomm pays ARM to make their own chip designs that implement the ARM instruction set, they aren't paying for off the shelf ARM designs like most ARM chip companies do.
- The RISCV instruction set IS open source. What they'd do to ratfuck it is lock the bootloader or something.
Simping for Qualcomm is definitely not a take i expected
- In the mobile Linux scene, Qualcomm chips are some of the best supported ones. I don't love everything Qualcomm does, but the Snapdragon 845 makes for a great Linux phone and has open source drivers for most of the stack (little thanks to Qualcomm themselves).
Saying an ISA is just a hardware API vastly oversimplifies what an architecture is. There is way more to it than just the instruction set, because you can’t have an instruction set without also defining the numbers and types of registers, the mapping of memory and how the CPU interacts with it, the input/output model for the system, and a bunch of other features like virtual memory, addressing modes etc. Just to give an idea, the ARM reference is 850 pages long.
- APIs can be complex too. Look at how much stuff the Win32 API provides from all the kernel calls, defined data structures/types, libraries, etc. I would venture a guess that if you documented the Win32 API including all the needed system libraries to make something like Wine, it would also be 850 pages long. The fact remains that a documented prototype for a software implementation is free to reimplement but a documented prototype for a hardware implementation requires a license. This makes no sense from a fairness perspective. I'm fine with ARM not giving away their fully developed IP cores which are actual implementations of the ARM instruction set, but locking third parties from making their own compatible designs without a license is horribly anticompetitive. I wish standards organizations still had power. Letting corporations own de-facto "standards" is awful for everyone.

This will get RISC-V probably a big boost. Maybe this was not the smartest move for ARMs long term future. But slapping Qualcomm is always a good idea, its just such a shitty company.

True, I just wished RISCV laptops were slightly more developed and available. As of now, the specs aren't there yet in those devices that are available. (8core@2Ghz, but only 16GB Ram, too little for me)

Kind of a bummer, was coming up to a work laptop upgrade soon and was carefully watching the Linux support for Snapdragon X because I can't bring myself to deal with Apple shenanigans, but like the idea of performance and efficiency. The caution with which I approached it stems from my "I don't really believe a fucking thing Qualcomm Marketing says" mentality, and it seems holding off and watching was the right call. Oh well, x86 for another cycle, I guess.
- I think, I would go for a ARM Tuxedo PC in your position.
  
  Oh, still some time needed for that as well, but you can see the progress (a lot is working now at kernel 6.11)
  
  https://www.tuxedocomputers.com/en/Where-are-we-with-our-TUXEDO-ARM-Notebook.tuxedo
- ARM CPU prob means that at some point you'll get stuck with a kernel limit.
  
  But did you imply you would buy (now) a RISC-V laptop if it had more RAM & cores?
I'll wait and see. RISC-V is a nice idea, but there are way too many different "standards" to make it a viable ecosystem.
- What do you mean by standards?
Yeah, in the current macro environment Qualcomm isn't that tied down & can afford some changes (basically with a few of their biggest partners that can keep their profits up even in a few transitioning years). Not sure what prompted ARM to force such a deal instead of getting like a good compromise.

But also fuck Qualcomm & their closed-softwareness.

Im still hoping I can buy a RISC-V laptop (from Framework?) in 2 or 3 years & just run Linux normally.
And if that can happen & RISC-V still doesn't overall prosper it's bcs of some shitty greedy deals between megacorps.

A risky move... Or should I say... A RISCV move...

"risc architecture is gonna change everything"
- Year of the riscv desktop
- It really did.
  
  FYI, ARM stands for Advanced RISC Machines.
- It actually did, but not in a way people expected at the time that movie was made. It changed a lot underneath the hood.
- https://y.yarn.co/2a4fe37e-ed9d-448b-af12-48a7a3202fa5_text.gif
For a firm that already have their own core designs that simply use the ARM instruction set, it might be easier to adapt to RISC-V. For a firm that licenses ARM cores on the other hand...
You should say that, yes, very hopefully much so.

thanks, proprietary licenses.

can we finally move to open standards now or will these fucks keep on losing money just to spite foss? are they that afraid we read some of their source code?

RiscV! RiscV!

I'm hoping for a nice warm x86_64 phone.
- IA64 phones would have been pretty hot too!

Tech patents are ridiculous. Let's end them or reduce them to 1-3 years with no renewal. Then all that's left is the specific copyright to the technology, not lingering webs of patents that don't make any sense anyway to anyone with detailed knowledge of the tech. All they're good for is big companies using legal methods to stop innovation and competition. Tech moves too fast for long patents and is too complex for patent examiners or courts to understand what is really patentable. So it comes down to who has the most money for lawyers.

Yeah, but another big issue is that big companies can afford to bribe or buy out the patent holders in the first place. Ideally, the patent holders would benefit the most from everyone making their tech, but instead they benefit the most from one company being the exclusive manufacturer and highest bidder.

The act of an agreement asking a patent holder not to sell to other manufacturers in itself should be illegal.
- Yeah, making patents nontransferable would solve that. Ultimately, getting rid of most would be good, but if we have to keep them, then they should be dissolved if a company fails or is bought out because obviously the patent itself wasn't enough to make a product that was viable. So everyone should get the chance to use the patent. The whole purpose of a patent vs keeping tech proprietary until the product is released was to benefit society once the patent expires. Otherwise, it makes more sense for companies to keep inventions secret if they aren't just stockpiling them like they do now.

With the understanding that both of these are publicly traded multi-billion-dollar corporations and therefore neither should be trusted (albeit Arm Holdings has about 1/10 of the net assets), I feel like I distrust Arm less on this one than whatever Qualcomm is doing on their coke-fueled race to capitalize on the AI bubble.

What does trust have to do with anything? I mean, they seem to be arguing because Qualcomm bought a separate licensor and ARM argues that requires a contract renegotiation. This is the least take sides-y legal dispute in the history of legal disputes.
- What does trust have to do with anything?
  
  The fact that I'm not a legal expert who's read the relevant portion of the existing contract? Like what Arm says seems reasonable, but at the end of the day, I have nothing definitive to go on.

Oh no, not copilot!

Anyway…

This seems like a tactic that might win a battle but lose the war. Reminds me of Unity.

What happened with Unity in the end? Did they back down?
- the fact that you know they fucked up but don't know how they fixed it says it all.
  
  even if they did "fix" it, public opinion has been settled and nobody will trust them for awhile.
- Yeah, iirc, at first they tried to downplay the change, then they paused it, then they walked it back entirely. I think that last step happened relatively recently, even.
  
  But IMO the damage was done from just trying to alter the deal like that.
  
  And, for me personally, I (naively) thought that ARM was an open standard. I opposed the Nvidia purchase because I thought they would do their corporate bullshit to kill off competition or for greed and thought that it getting blocked meant it would be free of corporate bullshit. This action makes it clear that it's already got some of that going on and ARM has been mentally re-filed to a spot beside x86 and its derivatives.
  
  Though now I'm wondering if that's the whole point. Do some shitty corporate stuff so that the next time someone wants to buy them out, there isn't as much opposition and the current owners and C-suite can cash out.

And so the corporate wars have begun

I saw this documentary where taco bell won them.
- KFC / Pizza Hut / Taco Bell -- the only restaurant you need!
- Only in the US. In Europe, Pizza Hut won.
Syndicate was fun but I didn't want to LIVE inside of it...
- Not enough miniguns yet.

The amount of IP money grubbing in the IT industry is able to literally make millions out of sand, this is just more of it.

Not necessarily "out of sand". IP is basically putting a price tag on a person for them to say "Yes, I consent". In other words, technofeudalism.
- I may be off base but I think that might be referencing what the computer chips are made of....

Good. Qualcomm refuses to make it easy to run linux on their hardware. Instead they try to hide basic information about their processors and chips in the name of selling a license for every little thing.

And so is Arm, especially their Mali drivers.

While some go "um, ackchually, you don't need a GPU driver for your hobby project of using a cheap SBC to run emulators", it does affect usability a lot. Yeah, Arm also pointing at the licensors and so are licensors to Arm in this case, but it's still not good that the only SBCs with relatively good GPU drivers for Linux are made by Raspberry Pi, and in all other case, you either need to pirate the drivers (!), use the tool that allows regular Linux to use Android GPU drivers, or just use the framebuffer-only driver with heavy limitations.
- I agree.

Part of the reason why when people were saying they wanted competition to unseat x86, I didn't want it to be ARM based, because I knew 100% that ARM would jump in and do some shit to rake in more profit and negate all the potential cost savings to the consumer. As long as theres a single(or in the case of x86, essentially (but technically not) duopoly) that controls all the options for one of the options, then it's not a good form of competition.

We shall break into the desktop and laptop market! Let's start by severing ties with one of the most successful companies to do that so far.

Apple?

While every comment here seems to scream "end patents", arm has less patent bs than other tech (rounded corners) meant to sue/prevent use. Arm works hard on developing and improving architecture and designs to offer licenses at a compelling price. Qualcomm paying as much as other licensees should be preferable to Qualcomm than bankruptcy.

Truly yes, but RISC-V.
Yeah. The crowd rooting for Qualcomm has never worked with them

ARM has it's problems, but they aren't in the wrong here
Qualcomm paying as much as other licensees should be preferable to Qualcomm than bankruptcy.

Not saying this is wrong, but where do you get it from? The article just states that ARM considers Qualcomm's acquisition of Nuvia a breach of license. Both companies held ARM licenses before. What's the issue with such a purchase?
Oh so they aren't as shitty as other companies so it is all good? Sounds like horseshit to me. Patents on a quickly changing area like computer technology are pretty asinine hence why people don't like them.

Also there is nothing preventing them from changing their behavior and turning into patent trolls in the future. In fact, enshitification pretty much guarantees they will at some point in the future.

ARM wants a sweeter deal.

Nailed it. They know they have a leading chip in these designs now, the market is expanding, and whatever licensing fee was negotiated in the past needs to be revisited.

I hope this isn't a cartoony scheme driven by Apple honeydicking Arm with the M-series processors to tank PC and Android.

Arm owner softbank wants more mulah, want line goes up.

Qualcomm thinks this is not allowed in their license contract.

Without having read the contract, I think Qualcomm has a strong case, seams arm wants this to be settled before court in December. Qualcomm also thinks they have a strong case, so they say let the courts begin.

But it doesn't matter if it's an American court, because Qualcomm is American, softbank is Asian, arm is European. So, you have home turf advantage