We are updating the license now to address this and will have a new version available soon. As an active member of the open source community, we continue to welcome all feedback.
A proper apology is not just “sorry,” but includes an acknowledgment of what they did wrong and that they’ll avoid doing the same thing again. Showing that they realize the nature of the problem and will at least pretend to not do it again would be good.
Well, at least they didn't make excuses or delay things, just said "don't worry I fixed it" basically. That's about the same thing I tell datacenters when they catch me seeding torrents.
IIRC, at the time they talked about the delivery of the initial patches for Meltdown and Spectre, Intel's definition of "soon" was somewhere between "4 weeks" and "never"
How do you gaffe this bad? How is someone that incompetent in the decision making loop? Some random engineer creating the ucode or uploading it to the web doesn't come up with this kind of idea to change license language. These are edicts from management. I'd love for that conversation to leak in full.
That language is likely derived from a path similar to this:
"Marketing department" -- We are sick of seeing the world complain that our patches to these problems reduce performance by X percent. Hey "Legal Dept", can anything be done about that?
"Legal Dept" -- We will see what we can do...
Result, a new clause appears in the license file that says "no bench-marking".
With no one in the path ever having heard of the Streisand effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect) (yes, Streisand effect is not a perfect fit here, but the 'publicity' part of the effect is what in fact has occurred).
I believe intel does distribute test/beta microcode to certain partners, and likely security researchers, this kind of statement is something you would put in a beta version, I wonder if someone simply used the wrong license file when they deployed this to the website.
Does it really take the entire marketing department for the story to play out this way? It just takes one marketing person to send one email to the right one lawyer in legal, right?
I saw a tweet somewhere (IIRC in the anandtech sidebar, unfortunately I'm not finding it right now) where the poster speculated that it was the EULA for a beta version of the microcode which leaked into the final version.
That makes much more sense. If that's what happened, Intel should just come out and say it. Own your mistakes, or at least adopt this lie if it wasn't a mistake, simply because it's plausible and will help them save face from a PR perspective. (The Nobel Lie as it would be).
If they had given it to specific companies before it was finished the benchmarks would not represent reality while it was under development, and as part of the embargo on these beta clients, they wouldn't be allowed to publish it.
Obviously not good if it makes it into the public release.
Because people are irrational and clickbait runs rampant.
If they contract testing of the beta to a 3rd party, they don't want them running benchmarks because if they get released, news organizations will jump on it, broadcasting the performance hit.
This matters because when later beta versions improve performance, the news about the improved performance doesn't spread nearly as much. Even if it does, the first impression sticks, and there's nothing Intel will be able to do about it.
Amazing how many people are still doing mental gymnastics to give Intel the benefit of the doubt. This should have stopped being the default position a while ago.
"I", as a multinational multi billion dollar corporation could then carry out the most vile acts, but as long as I can feign 'oops' I ought never be held to account as if my acts had intent? I mean come on, they're killing their processor performance due to their own security vulnerabilities and oopsie daisy we just accidentally included a 'no benchmarking' clause? I've got a better razor for - Occam's.
People who play by the rules in this space, which includes (many) open source developers. Flaunting the ill-conceived license is one choice, getting it fixed is a better choice.
From a legal point of view can you limit free speech through a end user license agreement? Free speech is protected by the first amendment, many countries basic legal laws. If some challenged it and it went to the high court how would it likely judge?
I'm not a US citizen but I seem to be more aware of what the 1st amendment actually entails more than a seemingly large proportion of actual citizens, surely you guys learn that stuff at school? Is it just presented really dryly and so kids don't pay attention?
This argument has been repeated so much, I'm going to try to explain. I'm not a lawyer, but this is what I learned in school in the US. There are numerous examples of voluntarily giving up your right to free speech. In the United States there are criminal and civil suits. You won't be criminally charged by the government for your free speech about CPU benchmarks, but if you actually agreed as part of a contract to not disclose benchmarks in order to get something, then you can be successfully sued by an organization or individual in a civil suit. They can't throw you in jail but they can take your money.
I highly suspect the same thing is true in most first world countries, otherwise a lot of companies wouldn't be able to do business because it would be illegal to keep trade secrets. What did they tell you in school?
I'm originally from UK, we don't learn about US Constitution, but my understanding is the 1st is about the government not being allowed to restrict your right to free speech, however a lot of people seem to be under the impression this means no-one is allowed to restrict your speech.
Curious, if Intel stood by their "no benchmarking" rule, can someone post the detailed benchmark results anonymously via say pastebin or something?
Sure, you can't trust it like you from something like phoronix, but the results can then be freely shared on social media right?
The problem is trust though. Benchmarks are only worth considering if the source is reliable. Unknown sources by definition aren't, because it's easy to fudge the numbers and give fake methodology. There's no consequences for the unknown benchmarker if he intentionally misleads. Anandtech et al. have reputations to protect.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 124 ms ] threadWe are updating the license now to address this and will have a new version available soon. As an active member of the open source community, we continue to welcome all feedback.
"That was a mistake, won't happen again" is an acknowledgement that they got it wrong and a promise not to do it again.
"We're changing it" is neither one.
Well, it is right there in your username :)
IIRC, at the time they talked about the delivery of the initial patches for Meltdown and Spectre, Intel's definition of "soon" was somewhere between "4 weeks" and "never"
"Marketing department" -- We are sick of seeing the world complain that our patches to these problems reduce performance by X percent. Hey "Legal Dept", can anything be done about that?
"Legal Dept" -- We will see what we can do...
Result, a new clause appears in the license file that says "no bench-marking".
With no one in the path ever having heard of the Streisand effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect) (yes, Streisand effect is not a perfect fit here, but the 'publicity' part of the effect is what in fact has occurred).
I believe intel does distribute test/beta microcode to certain partners, and likely security researchers, this kind of statement is something you would put in a beta version, I wonder if someone simply used the wrong license file when they deployed this to the website.
I don't see how this changes anything at all.
Obviously not good if it makes it into the public release.
If they contract testing of the beta to a 3rd party, they don't want them running benchmarks because if they get released, news organizations will jump on it, broadcasting the performance hit.
This matters because when later beta versions improve performance, the news about the improved performance doesn't spread nearly as much. Even if it does, the first impression sticks, and there's nothing Intel will be able to do about it.
https://twitter.com/RyanSmithAT/status/1032546813176307712
and if it was true they would have said so in their reply.
Such EULA clauses need to be put to the test and overturned for the anti-consumer monopolistic garbage they are.
found via https://twitter.com/imadsousou/status/1032680311753072640
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
Think NDAs.
I highly suspect the same thing is true in most first world countries, otherwise a lot of companies wouldn't be able to do business because it would be illegal to keep trade secrets. What did they tell you in school?
What am i missing?