[Announcement] Avalon ASIC Development Status [Batch #1]

[thorvald]

Happy new year 2013 and all the best for you!! Let all dreams come true for every one of You

[BitSyncom]

I think the next official update is us shipping out a device. needless to say, we are at the end and is pretty busy at the moment, soon major team members are actually going to stay and live in the factory housing for a few days to make sure everything works out smoothly.

I do not think we will be providing any power consumption/final hashrate prior to shipping the units because we will be tweaking the numbers until we feel it's ready. Soon as we ship everything will become clear.

[ninjaboon]

Happy new year 2013 and all the best for you!! Let all dreams come true for every one of You

Happy new year 2013 to all ...let's make lots of bitcoins this year...

[kano]

Happy new year 2013 and all the best for you!! Let all dreams come true for every one of You

Happy new year 2013 to all ...let's make lots of bitcoins this year...

Approximately 1,314,000 BTC
(though since we are expecting diff rises, a diff rise of any reasonable amount at the end of 2013 means that number goes up a bit)

[Third Way]

I'd love to invest in an ASIC but I only ever really wanted something tiny like one of those Jalapeño types like BFL has.

Still, good luck to everyone that invested in any asic company.

[kaerf]

I think the next official update is us shipping out a device. needless to say, we are at the end and is pretty busy at the moment, soon major team members are actually going to stay and live in the factory housing for a few days to make sure everything works out smoothly.

I do not think we will be providing any power consumption/final hashrate prior to shipping the units because we will be tweaking the numbers until we feel it's ready. Soon as we ship everything will become clear.

no demo?

[kano]

Just thought I'd point out the obvious ...
Since neither myself or ckolivas are involved in the cgminer version you guys are going to put in the Avalon ...
You cannot release your device without also releasing the source code for the cgminer in your device.
Thanks.

[nathanrees19]

I think the next official update is us shipping out a device. needless to say, we are at the end and is pretty busy at the moment, soon major team members are actually going to stay and live in the factory housing for a few days to make sure everything works out smoothly.

I do not think we will be providing any power consumption/final hashrate prior to shipping the units because we will be tweaking the numbers until we feel it's ready. Soon as we ship everything will become clear.

no demo?

But I like demos

[gmaxwell]

Since neither myself or ckolivas

Would you really endorse a closed source release of cgminer in any case?  And do you really think you can?  There is a lot of code written by other people in cgminer under GPLv2 and GPLv3— including code by Jeff.

Other than avoiding providing source to the general public before the device's actual realize I can't imagine the avalon team having _any_ motivation to release a binary only miner and they can solve that by only distributing the source to the device recipients in order to maximally delay their competition seeing it.

[kano]

Since neither myself or ckolivas

Would you really endorse a closed source release of cgminer in any case?  And do you really think you can?  There is a lot of code written by other people in cgminer under GPLv2 and GPLv3— including code by Jeff.

Other than avoiding providing source to the general public before the device's actual realize I can't imagine the avalon team having _any_ motivation to release a binary only miner and they can solve that by only distributing the source to the device recipients in order to maximally delay their competition seeing it.

WTF are you talking about?
There would never be a closed source cgminer.

[gmaxwell]

WTF are you talking about?
There would never be a closed source cgminer.

Good to hear. I thought what I was talking about was clear enough.

Let me try talking a bit louder:

Since neither myself or ckolivas are involved in the cgminer version you guys are going to put in the Avalon ...
You cannot release your device without also releasing the source code for the cgminer in your device.

Is it more clear now? It sounds like you were saying that if and only if you or ckolivas were involved a vendor could release a cgminer based product without source. I don't believe this is correct, and I'm glad to hear you wouldn't consider it.  I suppose instead you meant "since we're not involved maybe thats evidence you were not planning on releasing the source"? I don't see how that follows, but OKAY. In any case, perhaps now you can see how your message could be read another way?

[gyverlb]

WTF are you talking about?
There would never be a closed source cgminer.

Good to hear. I thought what I was talking about was clear enough.

Let me try talking a bit louder:

Since neither myself or ckolivas are involved in the cgminer version you guys are going to put in the Avalon ...
You cannot release your device without also releasing the source code for the cgminer in your device.

Is it more clear now? It sounds like you were saying that if and only if you or ckolivas were involved a vendor could release a cgminer based product without source. I don't believe this is correct, and I'm glad to hear you wouldn't consider it.  I suppose instead you meant "since we're not involved maybe thats evidence you were not planning on releasing the source"? I don't see how that follows, but OKAY. In any case, perhaps now you can see how your message could be read another way?

I guess that if both ckolivas and kano were involved, as they are by far the main contributors to the source, given enough time they could replace any code commited by other contributors in cgminer by a brand new reimplementation. They would then be able to licence the resulting code the way they want. That's theoretical though and could prove difficult in practice (some parts of cgminer might need a clean-room reimplementation that neither ckolivas and kano would be suitable developers for given their knowledge of it) and this theoretical possibility is only used by kano as a demonstration argument given his later answer.

[gmaxwell]

I guess

Well, I actually went through the codebase and history some before commenting.

[gyverlb]

I guess

Well, I actually went through the codebase and history some before commenting.

I did too and didn't find much in recent history: contributors in December essentially brought device specific code which could be removed for an ASIC specific cgminer. I guess you were more thorough in your codewalk.

That's one reason I used "theoretical" for this approach: it's hard to evaluate the amount of work needed to remove past contributions when you want to relicense a codebase. From a purely ideological point of view I must say I think this is a good thing: when you originally use the GPL and grow a community of developers around your project it shouldn't be easy to remove past contributions that helped the project mature to profit on your own from the codebase.

[Inaba]

Not disparaging the Avalon team, as I have no idea what they are planning... but it's not like China has a great track record when it comes to IP and copyrights.  If they did release it without the source, realistically, what is the recourse?  Pretty much zip.

[Bogart]

Other than avoiding providing source to the general public before the device's actual realize I can't imagine the avalon team having _any_ motivation to release a binary only miner

A binary release will need to be shipped in the Avalon device itself (compiled to run on Atheros MIPS), if it's to be ready to operate out-of-the-box.

I trust that they will release the source also.  I believe they have commented saying that they will.

[tvbcof]

Not disparaging the Avalon team, as I have no idea what they are planning... but it's not like China has a great track record when it comes to IP and copyrights.  If they did release it without the source, realistically, what is the recourse?  Pretty much zip.

Your statement lacks some degree of context and thus it is difficult to see what exactly you are driving at.  It almost looks like kind of a random flailing against an 'adversary' (I have not yet determined if BFL and Avalon are 'competitors'.)  But anyway...

One dis-advantage of their not adhering to open-source principles to a realistic degree would be loss of sales and support by at least a segment of the community.

My observation is that the 'problem' of intellectual property theft in many areas is diminishing.  I believe that a primary reason for this is that the open-source world offers superior solutions in many cases.  Much of the closed-source world is actually a lot of hot air and/or deeply troubled code which would be dis-advantageous to employ for long-term value projects.

Anyway, I'm not buying shit from anyone until they can demonstrate a working solution, and then I'll determine whether what they are selling is worth having.  And open-source will be a HUGE part of who I send my BTC/USD to.

[Inaba]

How is that "flailing against an adversary" exactly?  Either it applies to the Avalon team and there's jack all anyone can/will do about it or it does not apply to the Avalon team so it doesn't matter.  Or are you seriously trying to deny the fact that China has a piss poor record of honoring IP protection laws?  Or... are you just being an apologist for the poor adherence to IP laws?

[Syke]

How is that "flailing against an adversary" exactly?  Either it applies to the Avalon team and there's jack all anyone can/will do about it or it does not apply to the Avalon team so it doesn't matter.  Or are you seriously trying to deny the fact that China has a piss poor record of honoring IP protection laws?  Or... are you just being an apologist for the poor adherence to IP laws?

What "China" does is irrelevent. The Avalon team has a known history of releasing Open Source stuff. That's what matters.

[meowmeowbrowncow]

Not disparaging the Avalon team, as I have no idea what they are planning... but it's not like China has a great track record when it comes to IP and copyrights.  If they did release it without the source, realistically, what is the recourse?  Pretty much zip.

Troll spotted.  Shields up.