Kano vs Bitsyncom

[Vicus]

I dont' know if this question was already answered. Jeff, did you ask Avalon to provide you the source code?

Not yet, no.

Yifu stated the source would be released, even before kano began his transparent quest for free hardware.  No reason to disbelieve that, at this time.

Fuck off and learn to read.

Mean while - yes that quite clearly shows where he stands with Open Source code.
The code was available the day the device shipped but you don't give a damn about getting them to release that software.
Not in your area of interest.
What goes around comes around.
I guess as I mentioned before it was a waste of my time even attempting to help 'you'.

Poor poor kano, evil Avalon don't want to give free ASIC

[1715278695]

1715278695

[1715278695]

1715278695

[1715278695]

1715278695

[1715278695]

1715278695

[1715278695]

1715278695

[1715278695]

1715278695

[bce]

Maybe jgarzik is kinda out of touch with the mining side of things, and with the role which kano has played in maintaining and improving cgminer for us all?  Kano is not after free hardware, but rather to make the hardware free to do a better job.  Kano needs the hardware in order to do this, or at least share the freakin' code so that when jgarzik reports _____, kano can do some guess work and try for a solution.  

Fill in the blank:
Avalon chose cgminer because ___________.

Remember, only 2 avalon units exist, to date.

[jgarzik]

Maybe jgarzik is kinda out of touch with the mining side of things, and with the role which kano has played in maintaining and improving cgminer for us all?  Kano is not after free hardware,

Where oh where did cgminer come from, originally?  hmmm.

[bce]

Where oh where did cgminer come from, originally?  hmmm.

Mr. Garzik, Thanks for the link - this explains much of the drama.  It seems to me that you two are both the proud parents and or grandparents of a baby called cgminer, and as any parent / grandparent would, you want to protect your baby.  With every fork, the baby grows into something new !  You should both be supportive of fostering its development and be willing to let it to grow with new devices as best as it can.  Avalon crashes, and I believe the fork of cgminer it is using is from kano's foster home, right?  Correct me if I'm wrong here, but you two both seem to want the same thing- you want cgminer and avalon to work correctly.

[kano]

Maybe jgarzik is kinda out of touch with the mining side of things, and with the role which kano has played in maintaining and improving cgminer for us all?  Kano is not after free hardware,

Where oh where did cgminer come from, originally?  hmmm.

... and the only numerical proof you have of the fact that you are mining is the code I wrote.

If you want to inflate your ego with your aggrandizement about the origins of cgminer you are arguing with ckolivas, not me.
His git is what I support, his code is the majority of what is in the main core of cgminer now.
A lot of the antique cpuminer guff has been rewritten ... coz it needed it.

I guess we could even compare that to the origins of the FPGA code.
As is well know Luke-Jr wrote the first FPGA driver in cgminer.
Most of that too has been rewritten ... coz it needed it.

Most things I've worked on with cgminer have been to add things that weren't even in (were missing from) the antique cpuminer.

[mrb]

Where oh where did cgminer come from, originally?  hmmm.

... and the only numerical proof you have of the fact that you are mining is the code I wrote.

If you want to inflate your ego with your aggrandizement about the origins of cgminer [...]

...says the guy who is constantly arguing with Luke-jr about the origins of the FPGA mining code in bfgminer/cgminer, who forked who, who rewrote what, blah blah blah  

A case of the pot calling the kettle black.

[-ck]

Meh I'm not getting involved. Even as a flamewar this got derailed to the point where I'm not even sure who's debating what 

[greyhawk]

Nice e-drama and stuff.

Here's the more important question though.

Is that kano himself posing with that katana in his avatar or is that another random weeaboo?

[Bicknellski]

The spectacle of watching laymen giving themselves a promotion to copyright attorney is truly worth watching.

+1

[kano]

Nice e-drama and stuff.

Here's the more important question though.

Is that kano himself posing with that katana in his avatar or is that another random weeaboo?

Yes, but it's not a katana
It's an antique sword used in the Boer Wars
But the only thing antique about it is it's age - it is indeed still a potent weapon.

Edit: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112543.msg1511807#msg1511807

[nathanrees19]

even before kano began his transparent quest for free hardware

Jesus fuck. I actually thought at the time that shipping one of their two units to you was a good thing. I hate being proven wrong.

[nathanrees19]

Maybe jgarzik is kinda out of touch with the mining side of things, and with the role which kano has played in maintaining and improving cgminer for us all?  Kano is not after free hardware,

Where oh where did cgminer come from, originally?  hmmm.

Nobody fucking cares about getwork/cpu mining anymore. cpuminer is a toy for people who want to lol at their linksys router mining at 20khash. considering how much has been rewritten/replaced with something less shitty, cgminer might as well have been forked from windows 98.

[greyhawk]

Nice e-drama and stuff.

Here's the more important question though.

Is that kano himself posing with that katana in his avatar or is that another random weeaboo?

Yes, but it's not a katana
It's an antique sword used in the Boer Wars
But the only thing antique about it is it's age - it is indeed still a potent weapon.

Edit: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=112543.msg1511807#msg1511807

Ah, I see now it actually ends where the picture ends. No katana indeed. I DID think the handguard looked very unjapanese. We need a weapon porn thread.

[allinvain]

[2112]

The spectacle of watching laymen giving themselves a promotion to copyright attorney is truly worth watching.

This is minor leagues kind of fun.

The real fun would (or will) start when the people involved could afford a real legal counsel. Imagine what would happen if a successfull preliminary injunction would get filled against importing Avalon units into USA. That would be like real fireworks.

Obviously I'm very curious what is in the unreleased source code in the Avalon driver. Fan-speed control is probably nearly open-source. But the voltage regulator programming and clock synthesizer programming may hide real secret information. Even if the code gets released the people involved may regret the ultimate results of the disclosure.

I understand that Avalon simply had no time to develop a proper firmware layer to isolate themselves from the results of adverse disclosure. They may be just another project snuffed by the situation where GPLv3 turns virulent and kills the host.

Anyone here has any constructive suggestions how to make the hardware driver detail disclosure non-adverse? Some sort of obfuscation scheme with programming a multitude of non-existent regsters with multiple pages full of hex values? Is there a quick way to distinguish which registers are real and which are fake?

[jgarzik]

Obviously I'm very curious what is in the unreleased source code in the Avalon driver. Fan-speed control is probably nearly open-source. But the voltage regulator programming and clock synthesizer programming may hide real secret information. Even if the code gets released the people involved may regret the ultimate results of the disclosure.

I understand that Avalon simply had no time to develop a proper firmware layer to isolate themselves from the results of adverse disclosure. They may be just another project snuffed by the situation where GPLv3 turns virulent and kills the host.

The kernel stuff is GPLv2.  Only cgminer is GPLv3, AFAICT.  Definitely a difference there, and there is plenty of de facto precedent for binary-only gadgets in the kernel -- even if hardcore Debian-legal denizens disagree with that legal interpretation/result.

Anyone here has any constructive suggestions how to make the hardware driver detail disclosure non-adverse? Some sort of obfuscation scheme with programming a multitude of non-existent regsters with multiple pages full of hex values? Is there a quick way to distinguish which registers are real and which are fake?

There are any number of existing bytecode solutions that could be employed, to provide a sort of "firmware" that is executed by the host CPU.  Modern ACPI functions like this, as does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware

Of course, that tends not to be performance-heavy code, but instead critical bootstrapping and initialization functions.

[2112]

The kernel stuff is GPLv2.  Only cgminer is GPLv3, AFAICT.  Definitely a difference there, and there is plenty of de facto precedent for binary-only gadgets in the kernel -- even if hardcore Debian-legal denizens disagree with that legal interpretation/result.

Well, I'm thinking that Avalon people didn't have time to write a proper firmware and device driver. They are probably using the generic drivers from the Linux kernel. Then all the initialization/control/stabilization code is in the modified cgminer, which is all GPLv3. Avalon probably heavily modified the AMD/ATI fan control code from the GPU miner and USB-interface code from the FPGA miner.

There are any number of existing bytecode solutions that could be employed, to provide a sort of "firmware" that is executed by the host CPU.  Modern ACPI functions like this, as does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Firmware

Of course, that tends not to be performance-heavy code, but instead critical bootstrapping and initialization functions.

The easiest it would be if only fan-control is used after initialization and voltage and frequency settings are hard-coded in the factory. But if they have the fully dynamic clocking like eldentyrell does in his tricone FPGA miner then it would be nearly impossible to split all that functionality into a binary blob or whatever else.

ACPI folks had years of experience with their technology and build up on the past experience with PnP etc. And even they still freqently can't get it right.

[kjj]

I understand that Avalon simply had no time to develop a proper firmware layer to isolate themselves from the results of adverse disclosure. They may be just another project snuffed by the situation where GPLv3 turns virulent and kills the host.

Bullshit.  There are no secrets here.  SHA is totally known.  Bitcoin mining is totally known.  USB is totally known.  There is absolutely fucking nothing in an Avalon unit to be protected by secrecy.  The hard part here is actually making the damn chip, not the LOL-programming they use in the FPGA that manages them.

Moreover, your notion of GPL "turning virulent" and killing the host is bullshit too.  If they didn't like the conditions, they didn't have to use any of it.  Not releasing their changes is just shitting on the community, and as I mentioned before, pointless.

[jgarzik]

If they didn't like the conditions, they didn't have to use any of it.  Not releasing their changes is just shitting on the community, and as I mentioned before, pointless.

That would only be true if Avalon said they will not release source code; but they have always maintained that they will release source code.  At least that's what I was told.

Based on that, the only question is the date of release, and by extension, the patience level of forum posters

[2112]

I understand that Avalon simply had no time to develop a proper firmware layer to isolate themselves from the results of adverse disclosure. They may be just another project snuffed by the situation where GPLv3 turns virulent and kills the host.

Bullshit.  There are no secrets here.  SHA is totally known.  Bitcoin mining is totally known.  USB is totally known.  There is absolutely fucking nothing in an Avalon unit to be protected by secrecy.  The hard part here is actually making the damn chip, not the LOL-programming they use in the FPGA that manages them.

Moreover, your notion of GPL "turning virulent" and killing the host is bullshit too.  If they didn't like the conditions, they didn't have to use any of it.  Not releasing their changes is just shitting on the community, and as I mentioned before, pointless.

I'm just quoting for posterity. This is a perfect example of a supporter that is worse than an enemy. Not understanding hardware is not a problem. Not understanding hardware and pretending to understand it is the most serious problem: for example the overclockability curve can be used to estimate manuafacturing yields.

Involvement of the people like kjj is the reason why so many hardware-related open source projects fail: they inadvertently disclose all the competitive information because they simply don't understand the manufacturing technology and planning: front-loaded NRE costs rule. The competition can run circles around them: a knowledgeable competitor using proper analytics would know more about their manufacturing than the ostensible project managers do.

This isn't a software business with no barrier to entry and where the costs are back-end loaded: mostly in the maintenance. Even if you don't understand this now, just copy this and paste it somewhere for the future reference. There is also a lot of similar discussion from they days where various people from around Linux Torvalds discussed merits and demerits of various licenses. In Bitcoin you have all that distilled to just a handfull of projects.