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Open-source champion Bruce Perens has called out Intel for adding a new restriction to its software license agreement along with its latest CPU security patches to prevent developers from publishing software benchmark results.
The new clause appears to be a move by Intel to legally gag developers from revealing performance degradation caused by its mitigations for Spectre and Foreshadow or 'L1 Terminal Fault' (L1FT) flaw speculative attacks.
"You will not, and will not allow any third party to ... publish or provide any software benchmark or comparison test results," Intel's new agreement states .
[...] Another section of the license blocking redistribution appears to have caused maintainers of Debian to withhold Intel's patch too , as reported by The Register.
[...] Updated 12:15pm ET, August 23 2018: An Intel spokesperson responded: "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."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Ethanol-fueled on Thursday August 23 2018, @11:35PM (6 children)
Can't somebody just publish an anonymous article (with easily repeatable results) and then have a trusted buddy in the tech journalism industry publish it? Intel's Jewish lawyers probably thought of that one, too, but maybe not well enough to cover their asses from that extra abstraction-layer.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 24 2018, @12:22AM (5 children)
Sounds like Intel's lawyers did think of that: "You ... will not allow any third party..."
But I expect a contract agreement can't oblige one of the parties to become a vigilante. Does Intel seriously expect recipients of their patches to monitor and restrain thousands of users? Did they even think about what they were asking of Linux distro maintainers?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @01:10AM (4 children)
As a Linux User, and part of the worldwide Linux Users Group, I don't exactly answer to anyone. Whatever I do, is not by "permission". Linus Torvalds does not "permit" me to do much of anything. I can run benchmarks all day long (or all month long) and publish the results wherever I wish. My readership base is just about nil now, but the Streisand effect would probably cause that to balloon in no time at all. And, I have never signed a contract with Intel or any other tech giant.
In all of the world, is there not one single (already existing and circulated) tech publication with the freedom that I enjoy?
(Score: 0, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Friday August 24 2018, @01:56AM (1 child)
It appears to me that you are all chickenshit bastards.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @02:11AM
You should stop looking at the world through your chickenshit colored glasses. Try those silly rose colored glasses. Lev Sheckelzoid recommends them!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @05:52AM
What if you just find one of these computers with the patch at a garage sale or whatever?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @10:33AM
You're quite wrong about that. Torvalds permits you to do pretty much: https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/plain/COPYING?h=v4.18 [kernel.org]