Talk:Arm Holdings/Archives/2013

Architectural license and other types (how many)

Not sure what the language in the press releases are for an architectural license. I see that I've been wrong in putting Cavium an a regular core category:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARM_Holdings&diff=573660919&oldid=573660653

I wasn't sure until seeing "full custom cores" in the linked Project Thunder page.

Note how the lanuage is different from that of the Broadcom press release: "Broadcom has licensed the ARMv7 and ARMv8 architectures. The agreement will enable Broadcom to develop and build its own processors based on the ARM® architecture." [This means the cores not, SoC around non-custom ARM cores?]

This seems to imply architectural license. Note they have been making their own "custom SoC with ARMv7-non-custom-core(?)" for much longer. Is Cavium in the same category, with respect to ARMv8 (can you even have a license (either core or arch.) to ARMv8 and not ARMv7 (or lower). Is there some key words to look for that we can put in the comment?

I'll also put this in the ARM Architecture talk-page. Please if this is too technical to discuss here to it there. Not sure if only Business types edit this page (till recently). Discuss Business stuff related to ths here, like maybe how many types are there. Arch. (for specific archs. (always including lower?) and core (individual cores) categories? comp.arch (talk) 16:31, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

this does sound very technical. The article is about the company rather than the technology and needs to be intelligible to the layman. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 21:01, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe you only edit ARM Holdings, not ARM architecture. The stuff you deleted has been there for a long time and was uncontroversial I thought. I just moved here since list of companies is not technical just business stuff. Citations would be better I agree. I didn't write the text just moved it. Some of it had citations above. Licensing is business related, and the two types, what part sounds very technical? The part in the talk page. That's just FYI. Or the stuff in the article itself? I tried to eliminate the technical stuff there.

Moving discussion to Talk-page:ARM_Architecture. comp.arch (talk) 21:39, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

I confirm that I do not read or edit ARM architecture. I focus on FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies and seek to ensure we maintain them all to a high standard of quality. To maintain that quality the material should, inter alia, be written in good prose and fully sourced. Best wishes. Dormskirk (talk) 21:49, 19 September 2013 (UTC)

License term description

Hi, this is already linked: http://arm.com/products/buying-guide/licensing/index.php

I listed the tree terms but didn't copy descriptions. I sure ARM Holdings wouldn't mind, just not sure if that would be a copyright violation. It's just 1-2 sentences for each of the 3 terms. Anyway it might not be wanted here, looking to ad-like.

Am I reading the wrong thing into the terms? The last one seems to mean license to selected cores, maybe one or two, the middle one all of them. Then the first one I'm not sure, it seems to describe the duration but also that it is their term for what we call architectural license ("(implementation)" - maybe that part is optional)? Should we use that term in the page (section heading - "Perpetual (Implementation) License") or is "(ARM) architectural license(es)" better/standard/less confusing? comp.arch (talk) 16:06, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you're reading too much into the terms if you assume that a "Perpetual (Implementation) License" is an architectural license. All three of those licensing terms could refer to core licenses, the first allowing you to design SoCs using that core into the indefinite future, the second allowing you to design SoCs using that core until the design part of the license expires (e.g., for the next three years), and the third allowing you to design one SoC using that core within the term of the design part of the license.

They also pretty strongly indicate that those are not the only three licensing terms that they offer when they speak of offering "several flexible licensing models for its technology" ("several", not "three") and list those as "the three most popular".

I suspect the terms of an architecture license are negotiated on an individual basis. Guy Harris (talk) 17:55, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

If you want some detailed discussion of ARM's licensing policies, see the article The ARM Diaries, Part 1: How ARM’s Business Model Works by the Anand of Anandtech and A long look at how ARM licenses chips - Part 1: 7 License types to rule them all, one company to bind them and How ARM licenses it’s IP for production - Part 2: Royalties and Physical IP make for a complex brew by Charlie Demerjian of SemiAccurate. They include some licensee counts that might be of interest. Guy Harris (talk) 19:20, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

"More costly" - citation needed and pandering to analysts

From my talk page (from previously): "I notice that you have put a series of "citation needed" templates on ARM Holdings. This is a FTSE 250 company and investment analysts use these pages. Posting unsourced information makes the article very unreliable. Making unsourced claims about customer lists also makes the article read like and advert. I am afraid I am inclined to add an "advert" tag to the article."

This might not apply to: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARM_Holdings&diff=573805349&oldid=573805177

"citation needed" IS protocol from Wikipedia. I feel like an unpaid employee of ARM Holdings for searching for citations, especially for things that I'm sure will not be found. Leave sentence out alltogeter? It seems valuabe (no pun intented) information will be lost.

I thought if taking out "much" in "much more costly" but you want a ref for "more" that is probably(?) not available. If you have three terms for licenses it seems obvious that some are more expensive, and the most "powerful" would be the most expensive. How much more I'm not sure, but I'm convinced a lot more. It feels like Microsoft giving you a copy of Windows vs. giving you a copy of the the "crown jewels", a source code license. That is known to be more expensive. Does some general ref to hardware lic. do (or in software field)? comp.arch (talk) 15:48, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

There's what's obvious, and there's what's true. The two are not always equivalent. I could imagine that "here's a license for the patents we have on the ARM instruction set" might be cheaper than "here's a license to build the chip we spent a lot of time designing".

I would also not assume that the license terms listed on the Licensing ARM IP page are the only license terms they offer; in fact, they seem to be strongly implying that there are other licensing terms when they say

"ARM offers several flexible licensing models for its technology designed to meet the differing needs of existing and future Partners. The essential characteristics of each of the three most popular models are outlined below:"

because if those are the three most popular, presumably there are other terms that are not as popular.

In addition, they refer to them as license terms, not licenses. It sounds as if those terms apply to multiple different licenses, such as licenses for different cores; you could get a "Perpetual (Implementation) License" to build, say, some particular ARM core, so that you will be able to design SoCs that include that core into the indefinite future and manufacture those chips into the indefinite future, and a "Term License" for some other core, so that, after some period of time, you will no longer be able to design new SoCs that include that core, but you'll be able to manufacture those chips into the indefinite future, and a "Per Use License" for some third core and get to design one SoC using it and manufacture it into the indefinite future. I suspect that the terms for an architecture license are negotiated on a per-case basis - they don't talk about architecture licenses on that page; my guess is that you find out about architecture licenses by calling up ARM Holdings and saying things such as "Hey, Warren, this is Steve. We have all these guys we got when we bought P.A. Semi, and we'd like to put them to work designing really cool ARM processor cores for our machines. Let's talk."

In addition, for a license there might be up-front costs, per-design costs, and per-manufactured-unit costs, making it more difficult to figure out which of two licenses are more expensive - the costs might depend on the volumes, and if license A has higher up-front costs but lower per-design or per-manufactured-unit costs than license B, license A might be more expensive with low volumes but less expensive with high volumes. Guy Harris (talk) 17:46, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

Blacklisting and keeping the page clean

I noticed: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=ARM_Holdings&diff=574425185&oldid=574323253

Already fixed in next two edits and reported (not sure if in right place or following procedure, haven't had to before): https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia%3AAdministrators%27_noticeboard%2FIncidents&diff=574443173&oldid=574441485

But in general, I've been editing the lead a lot recently (too much? citing ok?), any objections? I thought at first I had gotten me on some blacklist :) But no one has reverted my edits or seemd to mind one way or the other. comp.arch (talk) 10:37, 25 September 2013 (UTC)

ARM Ltd. (or ARM (Holdings) Plc.)? Still exists?

Some pages refer to ARM Ltd. Is it for historical reasons or does it still exist? Seems somewhere it should be updated execpt for that ARM's own website says "ARM Ltd.". Maybe they are just out of date.. What does Holdings in ARM Holdings mean? Maybe it's "holding" the ARM Ltd.? Seems a Holding company doesn't mean thatI guess thats the key, but it could still own a "sub-company". Isn't that commonly done (for tax purposes)? comp.arch (talk) 23:59, 8 November 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I see now from above "ARM Limited is the holding company's UK subsidiary". (Limited = Ltd.). Like I thought, makes me wander should we in ARM architecture use ARM Ltd.? Is ARM Holdings just a money matter and the UK people design the stuff? I guess not, there could be exceptions (I know of (now) ARM Norway), all should be attributed to the parent company (I would want to say Sophie (Roger) Wilson..). comp.arch (talk) 00:07, 9 November 2013 (UTC)