[xoa]

>Like it or not they are patented https://patents.google.com/patent/US7499962 (FMA, for example)

Yeah, and AVX is also relatively new, intro'd in 2008 and first shipped in a chip in 2011. AVX2 wasn't until 2013. So even with R&D and patents happening years beforehand it'll still be a good long while before they expire (that FMA example being a case in point, not until end of 2026).

Granted in Apple's specific case that's actually not a bad thing. Precisely because AVX is so new, many Macs supported up until the last version or two of macOS didn't have it. So AVX isn't at all a widely expected dependency for the kind of older software that may never get an ARM port and in turn most needs Rosetta 2.