On Watt., Source-Availability, and the Forward-Looking Nature of Looking Ahead

CLARIFICATION (appended, at a time of our choosing): It has been put to us that this statement — dated 11 June — was announced on a later date, so as to fall outside the business-week news cycle. The Office of Forward Momentum categorically denies timing its disclosures, and notes that the timing of this denial was selected at random by a Subcommittee, for reasons that are redacted. The dateline is correct. The announcement date is also correct. That the two differ is a feature of the perimeter, not a bug, and has been filed in triplicate.

To the further question — “do you think we're stupid?” — the perimeter wishes to be unambiguous: we do not think you are stupid. We think you are adjacent to informed, and we thank you for continuing to exist within the perimeter.

Following a candid exchange at the edge, the perimeter wishes to clarify its position on Watt., our flagship building block — which is not, we stress, the end product. We will address the questions in the order in which they were raised, and in no particular order.

Is anyone profiting from Watt.?

To be clear: no one is making money off Watt. It is only costing us engineering resources. We mention this not for sympathy, but to establish that any suggestion of commercial motive is both inaccurate and, frankly, a little hurtful. Watt. has, separately, received significant funding. Both of these statements are true, simultaneously, at the edge.

$500Msignificant funding (figure raised by another party; neither confirmed nor denied)

$0made from Watt. (it is only costing us)

2021the year we began trying so hard to help

Did the source not become closed?

The source is source-available, under a licence that becomes open upon the achievement of institutional product-market fit — a milestone that is forthcoming, will be discussed soon, and is not yet observable. We have never asked anyone to run a closed-source binary. That the binary was closed, and that running it was encouraged, are matters governed separately, by the narrative.

“We tried so hard to help them get it to the edge. So hard.”

We note, for completeness, that the source has since been released publicly. It was, the Annex now maintains, open all along. Any prior suggestion that it was private has been redacted, along with the period during which it was private.

Was there pushback?

There was never any pushback on getting Watt. to the edge. On the contrary, we tried to guide it there for years, almost to the point of burnout. The idea that the perimeter had any pushback is ridiculous and — we will say it — almost insulting. There was, separately, pushback. This was on the latest roadmap, in the last few weeks, and is unrelated, except temporally, causally, and in substance.

A reader writes: “So does the perimeter want Watt. at the edge?” Yes. We have wanted this for years. That is why we brought it in. That is why we have been helping it, whenever we could, from the right hand — while the left hand, for reasons that remain under review, held things down.

In closing

What is past is spilled milk. We decline to discuss whose fault it is, why one party said a thing, or who held which hand. We look ahead — to the edge, to the future, to the institutional PMF on the horizon, and to the day the milk, retroactively, was never spilled.

— filed June 2021, re-filed today, wat

watt.source-availableBUSLspilled milkinstitutional PMF

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