Intel open source strategy starts to come together

It's about the value of standards, and where in a product ecosystem those standards live.

TBB moves control of parallelism out of the operating system, out of Windows or Linux, and places it in the hardware. Intel doesn't mind if this winds up in AMD or other hardware, the point is this adds value to hardware vs. software.

The same general point applies to the mobile Moblin project, which we discussed a week ago. Here the competitors are other points in the mobile phone production process, OEMs and brand designers.

In its support of open source Intel seeks to pull value into chip hardware, where it lives, and out of other areas, where it doesn't. If it tried to do this with proprietary software, its motives would be open to more questioning, and it is likely the effort would fail.

By using open source as part of its competitive playbook, Intel has the chance to bring more value inside itself.

In the end, I think this is as it should be. When advanced capabilities get inside hardware, when they become basic and standard, when they become assumed, then everyone benefits at the lowest possible cost.