Update: I am no longer an Intel employee (I now work full-time on Primate Labs) so the following is no longer relevant. However, I've left this post up for historical purposes.
While it's not something I talk about a lot, many of you already know that Primate Labs is not my full-time job. I have a full-time job (as a software developer) during the day and I work on Primate Labs during my evenings and weekends. Although I lose much of my leisure time, my day job gives me access to amazing technology and Primate labs constantly forces me to deal with new challenges. It is a "double life" that has made me a better developer.
You might wonder why any of this matters to you, my users. I have been fortunate that the companies that I have worked for in the past, including most recently RapidMind, have been willing to allow me to pursue Primate Labs projects. A few weeks ago RapidMind was acquired by Intel. This acquisition has forced me to question what I should do as the developer of a vendor-neutral cross-platform processor benchmark AND as an employee of the world's largest semiconductor company. Can I remain neutral when it comes to my Geekbench work?
I have considered many options, including selling or open-sourcing Geekbench. Abandoning Geekbench was not an option since Geekbench has over 10,000 registered users, over 170,000 results submitted to the Geekbench Browser, and companies all over the world in different industries use Geekbench.
I have decided to continue to work on Geekbench. I will strive to provide a benchmark that remains vendor-neutral in spite of my daytime employment. It is just another challenge, but one that you as Geekbench users should be aware of and understand.
If you have any questions, comments or concerns about this please let me know. You can reach me via email at john@primatelabs.ca or by posting a comment below.