With the perennial tensions between proprietary and open source software (OSS) unlikely to end anytime soon, a $3 billion startup is throwing its weight behind a new licensing paradigm — one that’s designed to bridge the open and proprietary worlds, replete with new definition, terminology, and governance model.

Developer software company Sentry recently introduced a new license category dubbed “fair source.” Sentry is an initial adopter, as are some half dozen others, including GitButler, a developer tooling company from one of GitHub’s founders

The fair source concept is designed to help companies align themselves with the “open” software development sphere, without encroaching into existing licensing landscapes, be that open source, open core, or source-available, and while avoiding any negative associations that exist with “proprietary.”

However, fair source is also a response to the growing sense that open source isn’t working out commercially.

“Open source isn’t a business model — open source is a distribution model, it’s a software development model, primarily,” Chad Whitacre, Sentry’s head of open source, told TechCrunch. “And in fact, it places severe limits on what business models are available, because of the licensing terms.”

Sure, there are hugely successful open source projects, but they are generally components of larger proprietary products. Businesses that have flown the open source flag have mostly retreated to protect their hard work, moving either from fully permissive to a more restrictive “copyleft” license, as the likes of Element did last year and Grafana before it, or ditched open source altogether as HashiCorp did with Terraform.

“Most of the world’s software is still closed source,” Whitacre added. “Kubernetes is open source, but Google Search is closed. React is open source, but Facebook Newsfeed is closed. With fair source, we’re carving a space for companies to safely share not just these lower-level infrastructure components, but share access to their core product.”

Fair play

Sentry, an app performance monitoring platform that helps companies such as Microsoft and Disney detect and diagnose buggy software, was initially available under a permissive BSD 3-Clause open source license. But in 2019, the product transitioned to a business source license (BUSL), a more restrictive source-available license initially created by MariaDB. This move was to counter what co-founder and CTO David Cramer called “funded businesses plagiarizing or copying our work to directly compete with Sentry.”

Fast forward to last August, and Sentry announced that it was making a recently acquired developer tool called Codecov “open source.” This was to the chagrin of many, who questioned whether the company could really call it “open source” given that it was being released under BUSL — a license that isn’t compatible with the Open Source Initiative’s (OSI) definition of “open source.”

Cramer swiftly issued an apology, of sorts, explaining that while it had erroneously used the descriptor, the BUSL license adheres to the spirit of what many open source licenses are about: Users can self-host and modify the code without paying the creator a dime. They just can’t commercialize the product as a competing service.

But the fact is, BUSL isn’t open source.

“We sort of stuck our foot in it, stirred the hornet’s next,” Whitacre said. “But it was during the debate that followed where we realized that we need a new term. Because we’re not proprietary; and clearly, the community does not accept that we’re open source. And we’re not open core, either.”

Those who follow the open source world know that terminology is everything, and Sentry is far from the first company to fall in its (mis)use of the established nomenclature. Nonetheless, the episode sparked Adam Jacob, CEO and co-founder of DevOps startup System Initiative, to challenge someone to develop a brand and manifesto to cover the type of licenses that Sentry wanted to align itself with — similar to what the OSI has been doing for the past quarter century with open source, but with a more commercially attractive gradient.

And that was what led Sentry to fair source.

For now, the main recommended fair source license is the Functional Source License (FSL), which Sentry itself launched last year as a simpler alternative to BUSL. However, BUSL itself has also now been designated fair source, as has another new Sentry-created license called the Fair Core License (FCL), both of which are included to support the needs of different projects.

Companies are welcome to submit their own license for consideration, though all fair source licenses should have three core stipulations: It [the code] should be publicly available to read; allow third parties to use, modify, and redistribute with “minimal restrictions“; and have a delayed open source publication (DOSP) stipulation, meaning it converts to a true open source license after a predefined period of time. With Sentry’s FSL license, that period is two years; for BUSL, the default period is four years.

The concept of “delaying” publication of source code under a true open source license is a key defining element of a fair source license, separating it from other models such as open core. The DOSP protects a company’s commercial interests in the short term, before the code becomes fully open source.

However, a definition that uses vague subjectives such as “minimal restrictions” can surely cause problems. What is meant by that, exactly, and what kinds of restrictions are acceptable?

“We just launched this a month ago — this is a long play,” Whitacre said. “Open source [the OSI definition] has been around for 25-plus years. So some of this is open for conversation; we want to see what emerges and pin it down over time.”

The flagship fair source license follows a similar path to that of “source available” licenses before it, insofar as it has noncompete stipulations that prohibit commercial use in competing products. This includes any product that offers “the same or substantially similar functionality” as the original software. And this is one of the core problems of such licenses, according to Thierry Carrez, general manager at the Open Infrastructure Foundation and board member at the Open Source Initiative: Much is open to interpretation and can be “legally fuzzy.”

“Fair source licenses are not open source licenses because the freedoms they grant do not apply to everyone; they discriminate based on legally fuzzy noncompete rules,” Carrez said. “So, widespread adoption of those licenses would not only create legal uncertainty, it would also significantly reduce innovation going forward.”

Moreover, Carrez added that there is nothing preventing the terms in fair source licenses from changing in the future, highlighting the problem of a license controlled by a single entity.

“There are two approaches to software development: You can have a proprietary approach, with a single entity producing the software and monetizing it; or you can have a commons approach, where an open ecosystem gathers around producing software and sharing the benefits of it,” Carrez said. “In the proprietary approach, nothing prevents the single copyright-holder from changing the terms of the deal going forward. So the exact terms of the license they happen to currently use do not matter as much as the trust you put in those companies to not change them.”

In many ways, fair source is simply an exercise in branding — one that allows companies to cherry-pick parts of an established open source ethos that they cherish, while getting to avoid calling themselves “proprietary” or some other variant.

Amanda Brock, CEO of U.K. open source advocacy body OpenUK, said that while it’s “great to see people simply being honest that [their software] is not open source,” she suggested that this new category of license might just complicate matters — particularly as there are already well-established names for this kind of software.

“We must shift thinking to consider three categories of software not two; OpenUK has been advocating for some time that we do this,” Brock told TechCrunch. “Within open source, we call the category that is proprietary with source that is public, as ‘source available’ or ‘public source.’ It is any code that makes [the] source [code] available, and which is distributed on a license that does not meet the open source definition.”

Git commit

Scott Chacon, who lays claim to being one of GitHub’s four founders and served as its chief information officer before his departure in 2016, launched a new Git-focused startup called GitButler at the start of 2023. He went through a whole gamut of licensing considerations, including fully proprietary, before settling on FSL and publicly proclaiming his support of the fair source movement.

“We are still somewhat unsure what our final business model will be, exactly, and want to retain our options,” Chacon told TechCrunch. “We know that if a company releases under an OSS license and then needs to relicense under something more restrictive in order to make their business work, there is an understandable outcry from the community.”

And that gets to the crux of the issue for many businesses today. Sure, everyone loves open source, but with all the backpedaling, startups today are hesitant to go all in and then risk the ire of the global community by having to change course.

“We liked the fact that it [BUSL / FSL-style license] is eventually open source, under an MIT license, but it gives us some air cover while we’re investing so heavily in it,” Chacon said. “We want to be able to protect our employees and our investors while giving our users as much access and freedom as possible.”

GitHub is actually a good jumping-off point for discussing the fair source movement. The Microsoft-owned code-hosting platform is central to open source software, and GitHub has open-sourced several of its own internal tools through the years. However, GitHub itself isn’t open source. Former GitHub CEO Tom Preston-Werner wrote about this very matter back in 2011, waxing lyrical about the virtues of open source while describing things that should be kept back. “Don’t open source anything that represents core business value,” he wrote.

And it’s this approach that Chacon is taking into his latest venture.

“My philosophy is to open source everything that you don’t mind, or even prefer, for your competitors to use,” he said. “I think that if fair source was a thing 15 years ago, we may have made the GitHub source public then under a license like that.”

Other businesses to join the early fair source fervor include YC-alum CodeCrafters; PowerSync; Ptah.sh; and Keygen, whose founder Zeke Gabrielse is actually partnering with Whitacre to handle governance around new fair source applications.

“Our governance at this point is scaled to the size of the initiative, so it’s myself and Zeke, our decision-making is public on GitHub, and anybody’s free to jump in,” Whitacre said, adding that there could be scope to set up independent oversight in the future — though it’s not a priority right now.

“We’re really just planting the seed, and seeing where it goes,” Whitacre said. “It’s a long play, so we’ll evolve the structure along the movement.”

The Drop

Screen share

Crowdsourced

Signing off

I was exhausted. I had just got back from a trip away, having done more driving in three days than I normally did in two weeks. This included several trips escorting a friend to a nearby hospital, where I had stayed until long past midnight. I was finally back home in my own bed, and I was desperate for a good night’s sleep. 

Consequently, I reached for a device on the pile of gadgets I have for review: the Aura Smart Sleep Mask. It’s not exactly one of the best sleep trackers: unlike the Oura Ring, one of our best smart rings that monitor the quality of your sleep, the ‘Aura with an A’ sleep mask is more focused on improving it. It does so with a few interesting features, although it comes with an all-too-common-these-days subscription-based app. 

I charged the mask with the included USB-C cable and synced it to the Aura app (after signing up for the free trial, which lasts for one week – then it’s a very expensive $59.99 a year to access all the personalized meditation, sleep and guided movement content on offer, so around £45 / AU$90). I slipped it on and was struck by how light and comfortable it was: the eye-cushion insert and coverings softened the press of the hard plastic casing against your face. Even though the sensation was unfamiliar, I quickly got used to sleeping on my side with it. 

Its contoured design is said to block 100% of light, and I would say that apart from a very slender piece of light below the seam, it’s more or less completely accurate. All-fabric masks may be more comfortable for side sleepers, but this hard-case mask blocks out ambient light more effectively than a thin slip of fabric. It also allows you to have fun and gently annoy your significant other by pretending to be Cyclops from the X-Men.

Here in the US, we are deep into election season, and it is impossible to debate politics without also debating how technology is distorting it. There are the AI-generated deepfake images Donald Trump circulated of Taylor Swift appearing to endorse his campaign, as well as disproven conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines. And then there are the malicious disinformation campaigns on social media, which are coming from everywhere – with seemingly no solutions in sight.

The Microsoft Threat Analysis Center released a report charting a recent rise in fake activist and news websites, as well as fake accounts on social media, created by operatives in Russia, Iran and China. Generally, their goals are to create chaos during the election and exacerbate tensions over race, gender and other hot-button cultural issues.

On X, Elon Musk released a chatbot called Grok, which was spouting misinformation for several weeks about when to vote. Meanwhile, Meta, owner of Facebook, announced it has a solution to the political misinformation conundrum: its social platform Threads won’t “recommend” political content. This is akin to claiming one can remove butter from shortbread – it sounds like a healthy goal until you try to separate out what is “political” from everything else.

I recently talked about all this at the National Book Festival in Washington DC on a panel with propaganda expert Peter Pomerantsev. Our moderator asked us if the 2024 election is better or worse than the 2020 one in terms of misinformation and disinformation, with the latter being false information intended to deceive or mislead. It is a complicated question, because social media has changed so much since 2020.

I think people are more aware of online misinformation, but they are more confused by it than ever. Partly that is because the previous generation of social platforms is crumbling away, and the new ones have fragmented us into dozens of spaces. But in the US, this confusion is also engineered. Politicians have sued and hamstrung academic groups like the Stanford Internet Observatory in California, which tracked US election misinformation online in 2020. We know the propaganda is out there, but nobody is able to analyse it adequately.

Plus, as Pomerantsev said, it isn’t as if online disinformation will evaporate after the elections. Indeed, many people crave it. Propaganda makes us feel like we are part of a community, united against a common enemy. This insight is particularly profound when it comes to social media, which is also designed to make people feel like they are part of a community even when they are alone with their glowing screen.

We are at a weird historical juncture. Experts may understand why propaganda works, but no longer know how it reaches us on a technical level. When the military sent propaganda to adversaries in the past century, they loaded pamphlets into planes and dropped them behind enemy lines. It was pretty obvious where the information was coming from, and why. Today, companies hide the way false information rockets across their platforms. Their algorithms for surfacing content are secret, and so are the identities of many people posting. We don’t need better technology to solve our misinformation problems; we need transparency from the companies disseminating it. They should be honest about where the content in our feeds is coming from, because most of what we see is determined by algorithm, and comes from strangers we never opted to follow. If researchers knew how information got into our feeds, and how people respond to it, they might come up with tools that prevent dangerous lies from spreading.

Still, there are non-technical solutions too. Bestselling author Rebecca Yarros, whose fantasy novel Fourth Wing is about a group of students at a war college for dragon riders, also spoke at the National Book Festival . As Yarros’s main character Violet gains more experience, she realises that the leaders of the college have been rewriting history books to justify a centuries-long war. In reality, her people started the war by colonising the group Violet once thought were the baddies.

Yarros explained that she wrote the book in part to protest US politicians who are removing references to slavery from history books. Many audience members thanked her for telling a story that debunked propaganda and was on the side of colonised people.

I walked around with a smile for a while afterwards. Partly it was the fizz of being in a real-life community, not one fabricated by propaganda. But it was more than that. Popular stories like Fourth Wing give me hope that the escape from propaganda can be just as compelling as the escape into it.

Annalee’s week

What I’m listening to

The podcast Tested, by Rose Eveleth, about the history and science of sex testing at the Olympics (see review, page 30)

What I’m reading

Peter Pomerantsev’s How to Win an Information War, a tale of British psychological operations in the second world war

What I’m working on

Learning about the history of biang biang noodles

Annalee Newitz is a science journalist and author. Their latest book is Stories Are Weapons: Psychological warfare and the American mind. They are the co-host of the Hugo-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. You can follow them @annaleen and their website is techsploitation.com

Week 3 started on a high note for the Jets (2-1). In their home opener, the New York Jets dominated the New England Patriots (1-2) from start to finish. Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers was fantastic, completing 27 of 35 passes for 281 yards and two touchdowns. The Jets defense was the real story, allowing only 139 yards and recording seven sacks.

Thirteen Week 3 NFL games will be played on September 22. The most interesting game of the day pits the Baltimore Ravens (0-2) against the Dallas Cowboys (1-1). Fans can watch every game on NFL Sunday Ticket through YouTube TV. Below, check out the NFL Week 3 schedule, with times, channels, and streaming information.

New York Giants at Cleveland Browns start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

It’s been a rough start for the New York Giants (0-2). In Week 2, the Giants became the first team to score three touchdowns, not allow a single touchdown, and still lose.

After a rough Week 1 loss, the Cleveland Browns (1-1) bounced back with an 18-13 win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Browns’ defense had a great day, sacking Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence four times and holding him to under 200 yards passing.

Chicago Bears at Indianapolis Colts start time, channel, and live stream

Pedal to the metal 💨 pic.twitter.com/E4T86hY72Z

— Chicago Bears (@ChicagoBears) September 20, 2024

Advertisement

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: CBS
• Stream: NFL+, Paramount+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV,

It’s been a tough two weeks for Caleb Williams. The Chicago Bears (1-1) quarterback has thrown for 267 yards, zero touchdowns, and two interceptions. However, the Bears’ offensive line has done a terrible job protecting Williams.

The Indianapolis Colts (0-2) and their star quarterback, Anthony Richardson, have also experienced growing pains early in the season. Look for the Colts to get running back Jonathan Taylor more involved in the offense.

Houston Texans at Minnesota Vikings start time, channel, and live stream

Justin Jefferson gives an update pic.twitter.com/03LF9soufj

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 19, 2024

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: CBS
• Stream: NFL+, Paramount+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV,

It’s no surprise the Houston Texans (2-0) are undefeated to start the season. Houston made the Divisional Round a season ago and have high expectations this season. However, the Minnesota Vikings (2-0) are one of the surprising teams of the year thanks to quarterback Sam Darnold, who is in the midst of a career renaissance.

Philadelphia Eagles at New Orleans Saints start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

After leading for the majority of the night, the Philadelphia Eagles (1-1) collapsed in the final moments of their Week 2 game to lose to the Atlanta Falcons. A lot of conversation this week surrounded head coach Nick Sirianni and his questionable coaching decisions.

Like the Vikings, the New Orleans Saints (2-0) have stunned the football world with an undefeated start. The Saints offense is firing on all cylinders, scoring on their first 15 possessions of the season.

Los Angeles Chargers at Pittsburgh Steelers start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: CBS
• Stream: NFL+, Paramount+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV,

Jim Harbaugh is off to a hot start as the head coach of the Los Angeles Chargers (2-0). The team is undefeated thanks to their second-ranked rushing attack (197.5 yards per game).

In Pittsburgh, Mike Tomlin has the Steelers (2-0) undefeated thanks to a defense that has allowed eight points per game. Justin Fields is in line to start for a third consecutive week in place of the injured Russell Wilson.

Denver Broncos at Tampa Bay Buccaneers start time, channel, and live stream

👀 on #DENvsTB.

📸 » https://t.co/umn0YInFvP pic.twitter.com/aDK3afJYx3

— Denver Broncos (@Broncos) September 19, 2024

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

The Denver Broncos (0-2) lost by six points in Week 1 and seven points in Week 2. The defense has held up their end of the bargain. However, rookie quarterback Bo Nix has struggled mightily with zero touchdowns and four interceptions.

Everything is good in Tampa Bay after the Buccaneers (2-0) went into Detroit and won 20-16. This marks the fourth straight season where the Buccaneers have started 2-0.

Green Bay Packers at Tennessee Titans start time, channel, and live stream

Facing Week 3’s test in the Titans.

— Green Bay Packers (@packers) September 19, 2024

Advertisement

• Start Time: 1 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

All you need is love … unless you’re the Green Bay Packers (1-1). Without starting quarterback Jordan Love, the Packers defeated the Colts 16-10 behind 261 rushing yards.

The Tennessee Titans (0-2) have now lost two winnable games. Quarterback Will Levis has made two crucial turnovers in key moments. For the Titans to win, Levis must take care of the ball.

Carolina Panthers at Las Vegas Raiders start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 4:05 p.m. ET
• Channel: CBS
• Stream: NFL+, Paramount+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV,

Nothing has gone right for the Carolina Panthers (0-2) this season. To make matters worse, quarterback Bryce Young has been benched for veteran Andy Dalton.

The Las Vegas Raiders (1-1) had one of the most stunning wins in Week 2. Down 10 points in the fourth quarter, the Raiders scored the final 13 points of the game to win 26-23 against the Ravens in overtime.

Miami Dolphins at Seattle Seahawks start time, channel, and live stream

Taking on the Emerald City 🏙️ pic.twitter.com/jcJPn6fOf3

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) September 19, 2024

• Start Time: 4:05 p.m. ET
• Channel: CBS
• Stream: NFL+, Paramount+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV,

Not only did the Miami Dolphins (1-1) lose in Week 2 but quarterback Tua Tagovailoa suffered another concussion that knocked him out of the game. Tagovailoa will now miss several weeks and cannot return until he’s medically cleared.

How about Geno Smith? The Seattle Seahawks (2-0) quarterback threw for 327 yards, one touchdown, and one interception in a 23-20 overtime win over the New England Patriots.

 Detroit Lions at Arizona Cardinals start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 4:25 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

It was a tough Week 2 for the Detroit Lions (1-1). Jared Goff completed only 61.8% of his passes and threw two interceptions in the team’s 20-16 loss over the Buccaneers.

Arizona Cardinals (1-1) quarterback Kyler Murray turned back the clock in Week 2 and looked like a Pro Bowler. Murray completed 17 of 21 passes for 266 yards and three touchdowns in the Cardinals’ 41-10 win.

Baltimore Ravens at Dallas Cowboys start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 4:25 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

After making the 2023 AFC Championship, the Baltimore Ravens have struggled to start the season. The Ravens have made uncharacteristic mistakes in their first two games and must clean them up.

Speaking of cleaning things up, the Dallas Cowboys’ defense was atrocious in a 44-19 loss to the Saints. The loser of the game between the Ravens and Cowboys will see their playoff hopes dwindle.

San Francisco 49ers at Los Angeles Rams start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 4:25 p.m. ET
• Channel: Fox
• Stream: NFL+, YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

The San Francisco 49ers (1-1) are the NFL’s equivalent to The Walking Dead. Christian McCaffrey and Deebo Samuel will miss Sunday’s game with injuries. Plus, George Kittle is questionable with a hamstring injury.

The Los Angeles Rams (0-2) are also missing multiple players, including wide receivers Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp. If the Rams cannot protect Matthew Stafford, it will be a long day for the offense.

Kansas City Chiefs at Atlanta Falcons start time, channel, and live stream

• Start Time: 8:20 p.m. ET
• Channel: NBC
• Stream: NFL+, , YouTube TV, Hulu with Live TV, ,

With Patrick Mahomes as quarterback, the Kansas City Chiefs (2-0) always find a way to win. The Chiefs escaped Arrowhead with a win for the second consecutive week thanks to a Harrison Butker game-winning field goal.

The Atlanta Falcons (1-1) are flying high after coming from behind to beat the Eagles 22-21. If the Falcons can upset the Chiefs, look for Atlanta to go on a run.

A new report states that Qualcomm is interested in acquiring Intel and that the former company has approached Intel about the possible acquisition. This would make Qualcomm a much larger player in the industry than it already is. Details about the interest in buying Intel come from The Wall Street Journal (via The Verge and Yahoo! Finance) which cites unnamed sources. The report says that the deal was not a certainty and Intel has not agreed to any such proposal at this time.

There’s also no word on whether or not Intel would even be perceptive to the acquisition. It would undoubtedly be a massive deal for both parties. Intel’s shares recently closed up 3.3%, but it’s been struggling of late due to issues with its last two generations of chips having issues that resulted in the chips crashing. Intel also recently announced it would be cutting back staff by at least 15 percent as of last month. Qualcomm shares, meanwhile, recently fell 2.9 percent. Acquiring Intel and its chip designs could help boost its recent re-entry into the PC chip market.

Intel recently announced it would be spinning off its foundry business as an independent entity. This was just two days after it was reported Intel was seeking government help in more or less convincing US companies like Apple and NVIDIA to use Intel’s fabrication for their AI-based chip manufacturing.

Qualcomm acquiring Intel would probably need regulatory approval

Qualcomm buying Intel would be a massive acquisition. Even if it could benefit both companies, regulatory bodies might see this as handing Qualcomm too much power in the industry. It’s a deal that, even if Intel agreed to it, would likely draw the attention of the FTC over potential antitrust concerns. That being said, it would also be an acquisition of an American-owned company by another American-owned company. So it wouldn’t necessarily be out of the realm of possibility in terms of approval.

And yet, Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard was also between two American-owned companies. And it still garnered tons of attention and pushback from regulators. This is all assuming things ever go that far for Qualcomm and Intel. As of right now all that’s been said is that Qualcomm was interested and approached Intel about that interest.

News of the acquisition proposal comes just a few weeks after it was reported that Qualcomm was interested in buying parts of Intel’s chip business. Specifically, its chip design department. Intel had reportedly been looking to shed some weight and offload parts of its business to save cash. Following a steep decline in its share prices that have fallen by about 57 percent this year.

Qualcomm recently laid off hundreds of employees

Reports of Qualcomm’s interest in buying Intel come at a time when it has just recently announced layoffs of hundreds of employees. The company said it would be laying around 226 employees later this year. Impacting staff at 16 facilities across the San Diego area.

This doesn’t necessarily have any ties to Qualcomm’s interest in buying Intel. However, it’s a move that Qualcomm is making that will help the company save some cash. Cash that be very useful in an Intel acquisition should things move forward.