Why is Butterfly Labs so secretive?

[Frizz23]

E.g. in another thread someone asked for the structure size (110, 130, ... ? nm) of BLFs ASICs.

Why is not even this information publicly available? I mean it's only two more weeks until the scheduled launch date.

From, for example, Intel we have this information years in advance: Haswell will be 22nm, then Broadwell with 11nm, then Skymont with 10nm. Do its competitors (e.g. AMD) gain any benefit from this information? No!

I mean it's like back in July 1969, two weeks before Apollo started heading for the moon. Imagine if NASA would have said: "No, we can't tell you how many astronauts we put in that spaceship ... (because with this information the Russians would be able to build their own rocket in just one weeks - and win the race to the moon)". Ridiculous.

So please, BFL - give us something. And not just rendered pictures of a Jalapeno (aka black Apple TV device).

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[tytus]

based on the power dissipation 90nm would be my guess.

[Frizz23]

based on the power dissipation 90nm would be my guess.

I am sick of guesses - I want facts.

So ... BFL ... what you say?

[majorddf]

Dejavu! As I said over at the BFL forums, BFL are not more or less secretive than any other company working on a new product. We are just spoiled by the openess of other Bitcoin ventures.

[AndrewBUD]

They wont say anything.. Until they start shipping units out in 2013 sometime.

[enmaku]

E.g. in another thread someone asked for the structure size (110, 130, ... ? nm) of BLFs ASICs.

Why is not even this information publicly available? I mean it's only two more weeks until the scheduled launch date.

Because no company is actually required to give you any of this information, you're just spoiled by the radical transparency of most Bitcoin ventures. BFL isn't doing anything that Samsung, Intel et al wouldn't do.

From, for example, Intel we have this information years in advance: Haswell will be 22nm, then Broadwell with 11nm, then Skymont with 10nm. Do its competitors (e.g. AMD) gain any benefit from this information? No!

Sure they do, but they only gain whatever information Intel is willing to let them have. A timeline/roadmap for the future of a well-established product isn't a lot of information, the nm process of a brand-new never before seen product is a hell of a lot of information. If you were running BFL wouldn't you want your competitors to be fully entrenched in potentially inferior processes before you released data about which process you're using?

I mean it's like back in July 1969, two weeks before Apollo started heading for the moon. Imagine if NASA would have said: "No, we can't tell you how many astronauts we put in that spaceship ... (because with this information the Russians would be able to build their own rocket in just one weeks - and win the race to the moon)". Ridiculous.

Except that NASA is a taxpayer-funded entity explicitly designed in such a way that all of their records, discoveries and processes are to be public information (with exceptions made for national security etc of course, it's the government, whaddya expect?). BFL isn't, they're a private company and as such are under no obligation to give you a thing. Hell, what they've given you is already more than what most companies would give you for an unreleased product. Did Apple release PCB renders of the iPhone 5 prior to release? Hell no, they barely gave out STATS let alone pictures of a running device or half the things people are demanding of BFL.

So please, BFL - give us something. And not just rendered pictures of a Jalapeno (aka black Apple TV device).

They've already given you quite a lot. The similarity of their case design to Apple TV doesn't really speak to anything besides perhaps a lack of uniqueness in either Apple's design or a tendency for the industry to copycat successful products, can't say which but I've got a dozen products in my home that look more or less like an Apple TV (including an actual Apple TV).

Here's what it boils down to:

Traditionally when you create something, as a business, you have two ways to secure that invention. Either you patent it, in which case your product and processes become public knowledge in return for granting you a period of enforceable exclusive profit or you keep your data a trade secret and the period of exclusivity lasts for as long as you can keep that secret out of your competitors hands. Many companies choose column A, examples being... well, just about anything you can find a patent or trademark for. Other companies choose column B, one famous example being KFC's secret spice recipe - not trademarked or patented, just flat-out secret. If someone got their hands on it and leaked it to the world it'd be open season on their secret spices.

Column C, chosen almost exclusively by Bitcoin businesses and Bitcoin businesses alone, is radical transparency. Tell everyone everything in as much detail as they'll listen to. Enough data to compete with you, to the point of copycatting a process you'd never have been able to mimic otherwise. You've become used to this for some reason, despite the fact that absolutely anywhere else it's not the norm. Walk into any normal tech company and start making these same kind of demands - you'll be removed by security. I'll never understand how a community that grew up around what is essentially a crypto project decided that having secrets and the right to protect those secrets is a bad thing. I understand you like your software and hardware open-source, but out here in the day-to-day tech world FOSS is the exception, not the rule.

If you don't like any of that, you're welcome to vote with your wallet, just don't buy BFL products if you disagree with their methods. Go support bASIC or AvalonASIC or something, competition is good for the marketplace and I'm sure that while BFL, like any company, would love to have a monopoly, the existence of alternatives drives all competitors to create better stuff. There is in fact something you can do about this if you feel slighted, so perhaps stop whining and just do it.

[bitmar]

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/content.php/120-BFL-Invests-in-Assembly-Equipment?#comments

"Once the machines are fully installed, we'll be happy to flood you with photos and assembly videos"

Where are this pictures?  2 weeks to shipping and machines is not installed? LOL  

[bobitza]

I suspect the main reason why BFL is secretive is the fact that time is of the essence with ASICs. First to get ASIC v1 on the market will get the lion share.

I also understand your argument that it's too late now to change anything, but perhaps this info can help competition plan ASIC v.2 or something like that.

[bitmar]

E.g. in another thread someone asked for the structure size (110, 130, ... ? nm) of BLFs ASICs.

Why is not even this information publicly available? I mean it's only two more weeks until the scheduled launch date.

Because no company is actually required to give you any of this information, you're just spoiled by the radical transparency of most Bitcoin ventures. BFL isn't doing anything that Samsung, Intel et al wouldn't do.

Maybe because no company sells preorders? Companies like Intel are selling products that are available in stores, people do not have to ask questions to find out whether their products work. just buy.

[enmaku]

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/content.php/120-BFL-Invests-in-Assembly-Equipment?#comments

"Once the machines are fully installed, we'll be happy to flood you with photos and assembly videos"

Where are this pictures?  2 weeks to shipping and machines is not installed? LOL  

BFL has publicly stated that the first run of units to ship are still having their fabrication outsourced. They hoped to have their pick/place, reflow oven, etc in place and running early enough to manufacture them in-house but it didn't work out that way. Likely we don't have pictures of the finished product yet because they don't actually have a finished product in their hands to show us - it's still out at some fab house. Now I'm sure they have a prototype of some kind, but prototypes also tend to be larger and uglier than finished products, usually don't work as well as finished products and almost invariably reveal more copy-able information than a finished product.

[AndrewBUD]

I like this post:

Those pictures are the pictures we based the purchase off of. We did not inquire as to the GPS coordinates of their origin and assume that the pictures represent the actual product. If they don't, well then, we will deal with that then.

Hopefully you don't get a pallet full of bricks? They don't even have the machinery to create these units that are shipping in two weeks?

[enmaku]

E.g. in another thread someone asked for the structure size (110, 130, ... ? nm) of BLFs ASICs.

Why is not even this information publicly available? I mean it's only two more weeks until the scheduled launch date.

Because no company is actually required to give you any of this information, you're just spoiled by the radical transparency of most Bitcoin ventures. BFL isn't doing anything that Samsung, Intel et al wouldn't do.

Maybe because no company sells preorders? Companies like Intel are selling products that are available in stores, people do not have to ask questions to find out whether their products work. just buy.

WTF world do you live in? Tons of companies sell preorders. Apple sold preorders on the iPhone 5, nearly every video game that is released comes with the option to preorder... Perhaps Intel specifically doesn't sell preorders but it's not like it's an unestablished crazy upside down concept. Not only do lots of companies sell their products via preorder, but they do so without releasing even as much information as BFL has and with hundreds or thousands of times BFL's preorder numbers.

iPhone 5 buyers, for example, might have liked to know that their maps were going to be shit on iOS 6 but was this info available before they held the product in their hand? No, because Apple kept their mouth shut about that, and nearly every, "feature." Same with the "grip of death" "feature" in previous hardware.

Again if you don't like the way BFL behaves, vote with your wallet and buy from a competitor but for the love of god stop acting like what they're doing is abnormal - the way they're working is the way most businesses work, you're just used to a level of transparency you don't often find outside of Bitcoin. If you want to see Bitcoin adopted outside of its current niche market, you're going to have to get used to the way normal businesses operate.

[enmaku]

I like this post:

Those pictures are the pictures we based the purchase off of. We did not inquire as to the GPS coordinates of their origin and assume that the pictures represent the actual product. If they don't, well then, we will deal with that then.

Hopefully you don't get a pallet full of bricks? They don't even have the machinery to create these units that are shipping in two weeks?

Hey look, another one who doesn't read before posting.

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/content.php/120-BFL-Invests-in-Assembly-Equipment?#comments

"Once the machines are fully installed, we'll be happy to flood you with photos and assembly videos"

Where are this pictures?  2 weeks to shipping and machines is not installed? LOL 

BFL has publicly stated that the first run of units to ship are still having their fabrication outsourced. They hoped to have their pick/place, reflow oven, etc in place and running early enough to manufacture them in-house but it didn't work out that way. Likely we don't have pictures of the finished product yet because they don't actually have a finished product in their hands to show us - it's still out at some fab house. Now I'm sure they have a prototype of some kind, but prototypes also tend to be larger and uglier than finished products, usually don't work as well as finished products and almost invariably reveal more copy-able information than a finished product.

[solareclipse64236]

bfl makes their own hardware so it's up to them to protect their corporate secrets

[BitcoinINV]

E.g. in another thread someone asked for the structure size (110, 130, ... ? nm) of BLFs ASICs.

Why is not even this information publicly available? I mean it's only two more weeks until the scheduled launch date.

Because no company is actually required to give you any of this information, you're just spoiled by the radical transparency of most Bitcoin ventures. BFL isn't doing anything that Samsung, Intel et al wouldn't do.

From, for example, Intel we have this information years in advance: Haswell will be 22nm, then Broadwell with 11nm, then Skymont with 10nm. Do its competitors (e.g. AMD) gain any benefit from this information? No!

Sure they do, but they only gain whatever information Intel is willing to let them have. A timeline/roadmap for the future of a well-established product isn't a lot of information, the nm process of a brand-new never before seen product is a hell of a lot of information. If you were running BFL wouldn't you want your competitors to be fully entrenched in potentially inferior processes before you released data about which process you're using?

I mean it's like back in July 1969, two weeks before Apollo started heading for the moon. Imagine if NASA would have said: "No, we can't tell you how many astronauts we put in that spaceship ... (because with this information the Russians would be able to build their own rocket in just one weeks - and win the race to the moon)". Ridiculous.

Except that NASA is a taxpayer-funded entity explicitly designed in such a way that all of their records, discoveries and processes are to be public information (with exceptions made for national security etc of course, it's the government, whaddya expect?). BFL isn't, they're a private company and as such are under no obligation to give you a thing. Hell, what they've given you is already more than what most companies would give you for an unreleased product. Did Apple release PCB renders of the iPhone 5 prior to release? Hell no, they barely gave out STATS let alone pictures of a running device or half the things people are demanding of BFL.

So please, BFL - give us something. And not just rendered pictures of a Jalapeno (aka black Apple TV device).

They've already given you quite a lot. The similarity of their case design to Apple TV doesn't really speak to anything besides perhaps a lack of uniqueness in either Apple's design or a tendency for the industry to copycat successful products, can't say which but I've got a dozen products in my home that look more or less like an Apple TV (including an actual Apple TV).

Here's what it boils down to:

Traditionally when you create something, as a business, you have two ways to secure that invention. Either you patent it, in which case your product and processes become public knowledge in return for granting you a period of enforceable exclusive profit or you keep your data a trade secret and the period of exclusivity lasts for as long as you can keep that secret out of your competitors hands. Many companies choose column A, examples being... well, just about anything you can find a patent or trademark for. Other companies choose column B, one famous example being KFC's secret spice recipe - not trademarked or patented, just flat-out secret. If someone got their hands on it and leaked it to the world it'd be open season on their secret spices.

Column C, chosen almost exclusively by Bitcoin businesses and Bitcoin businesses alone, is radical transparency. Tell everyone everything in as much detail as they'll listen to. Enough data to compete with you, to the point of copycatting a process you'd never have been able to mimic otherwise. You've become used to this for some reason, despite the fact that absolutely anywhere else it's not the norm. Walk into any normal tech company and start making these same kind of demands - you'll be removed by security. I'll never understand how a community that grew up around what is essentially a crypto project decided that having secrets and the right to protect those secrets is a bad thing. I understand you like your software and hardware open-source, but out here in the day-to-day tech world FOSS is the exception, not the rule.

If you don't like any of that, you're welcome to vote with your wallet, just don't buy BFL products if you disagree with their methods. Go support bASIC or AvalonASIC or something, competition is good for the marketplace and I'm sure that while BFL, like any company, would love to have a monopoly, the existence of alternatives drives all competitors to create better stuff. There is in fact something you can do about this if you feel slighted, so perhaps stop whining and just do it.

Wrong ask the States Dept of Justice's there is consumer rights for every state just look them up. If you buy something then they need to tell you what it is. You can not sell a product and say its going to do X, with out backing. It falls under a snake oil type law.

Intel will show prototypes of products with spec's before they are sold, Take apple for instance they take pre-orders on iphones but the product has specs released already.

[BitcoinINV]

https://forums.butterflylabs.com/content.php/120-BFL-Invests-in-Assembly-Equipment?#comments

"Once the machines are fully installed, we'll be happy to flood you with photos and assembly videos"

Where are this pictures?  2 weeks to shipping and machines is not installed? LOL  

BFL has publicly stated that the first run of units to ship are still having their fabrication outsourced. They hoped to have their pick/place, reflow oven, etc in place and running early enough to manufacture them in-house but it didn't work out that way. Likely we don't have pictures of the finished product yet because they don't actually have a finished product in their hands to show us - it's still out at some fab house. Now I'm sure they have a prototype of some kind, but prototypes also tend to be larger and uglier than finished products, usually don't work as well as finished products and almost invariably reveal more copy-able information than a finished product.

That does not matter they are sent a test batch of chips, they should have proto-types. The factor sends chips to be texted to make sure they do not make 1000's of bad chips.

[AndrewBUD]

E.g. in another thread someone asked for the structure size (110, 130, ... ? nm) of BLFs ASICs.

Why is not even this information publicly available? I mean it's only two more weeks until the scheduled launch date.

Because no company is actually required to give you any of this information, you're just spoiled by the radical transparency of most Bitcoin ventures. BFL isn't doing anything that Samsung, Intel et al wouldn't do.

Maybe because no company sells preorders? Companies like Intel are selling products that are available in stores, people do not have to ask questions to find out whether their products work. just buy.

WTF world do you live in? Tons of companies sell preorders. Apple sold preorders on the iPhone 5, nearly every video game that is released comes with the option to preorder... Perhaps Intel specifically doesn't sell preorders but it's not like it's an unestablished crazy upside down concept. Not only do lots of companies sell their products via preorder, but they do so without releasing even as much information as BFL has and with hundreds or thousands of times BFL's preorder numbers.

iPhone 5 buyers, for example, might have liked to know that their maps were going to be shit on iOS 6 but was this info available before they held the product in their hand? No, because Apple kept their mouth shut about that, and nearly every, "feature." Same with the "grip of death" "feature" in previous hardware.

Again if you don't like the way BFL behaves, vote with your wallet and buy from a competitor but for the love of god stop acting like what they're doing is abnormal - the way they're working is the way most businesses work, you're just used to a level of transparency you don't often find outside of Bitcoin. If you want to see Bitcoin adopted outside of its current niche market, you're going to have to get used to the way normal businesses operate.

Right but they accept pre-orders on a set date... Do you think Apple or a game producer would get away with taking pre-orders with a release date of Oct 28th 2012 and not ship until 6 months later?

[Meatball]

Why don't you all just chill for a few weeks and there will likely be tons of crap floating around as ASIC's start shipping.  If you don't have patience then you shouldn't be in the BTC game.

[Meatball]

Right but they accept pre-orders on a set date... Do you think Apple or a game producer would get away with taking pre-orders with a release date of Oct 28th 2012 and not ship until 6 months later?

You know how many MMO's/video games this happens to?  If you're not happy, don't buy BFL.  If you've already pre-ordered and aren't happy, then contact BFL and ask for a refund.  Everyone that has done that has gotten their money back.

[AndrewBUD]

Right but they accept pre-orders on a set date... Do you think Apple or a game producer would get away with taking pre-orders with a release date of Oct 28th 2012 and not ship until 6 months later?

You know how many MMO's/video games this happens to?

? So game dev's take pre orders months prior to the game even being finished? I really doubt this ever happens.... I'll bet most take pre orders on games that have a beta released already.


This is not a game though... well it sorta is