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Linux didn't instantly become something you could download from kernel.org, compile overnight and get it booting right away. It took hundreds and hundreds of de

by tssva 10y ago

Linux didn't instantly become something you could download from kernel.org, compile overnight and get it booting right away. It took hundreds and hundreds of developers, thousands of man hours, financial investments from a large number of companies worldwide and many many years for Linux to become what it is today. All of this done while there were several existing commercial Unix variants which could have been licensed instead. During its early years many scoffed at it as you have RISC-V. "It is a hobby OS. It will never be able to really compete with the likes of Solaris, HP-UX, and AIX. Heck, it won't even be able to compete with SCO and Unixware."

sweden 10y ago
I'm not saying that RISC-V is an hobby project, I'm just saying that hardware development is nowhere comparable to software development. You need much more support and verification while developing hardware then developing software. And while you can reuse the functional design (please note the keyword "functional"), the physical implementation needs to be redone from project to project. ARM, Intel, AMD, Apple and Qualcomm have an army of engineers with all kinds of tools that go through all the steps of hardware design and implementation which you can't do as a side project at home using just your computer.
TheOtherHobbes 10y ago
Linux is still a hobby OS. It's not a particularly wonderful example of software engineering. Its only real benefit is that it's free and comes with an ecosystem of other free software that kind of mostly works as long as you don't mind the occasional security horror, and can be used as-is or customised at relatively low cost. That combination of features makes it appealing in a variety of business cases - for business reasons. RISC-V can't be customised at relatively low cost. It's nominally free, but the freeness doesn't mean much in a business setting. The total cost of developing a custom core remains beyond the reach of small companies. Big companies already know there's an established ARM ecosystem with working compilers and a simple, risk-free, and relatively affordable business model. So what business problem does RISC-V solve?
- Recurecur 10y ago
  "Linux is still a hobby OS. It's not a particularly wonderful example of software engineering. Its only real benefit is that it's free and comes with an ecosystem of other free software that kind of mostly works as long as you don't mind the occasional security horror, and can be used as-is or customised at relatively low cost." That is complete nonsense. Linux, particularly Red Hat Enterprise Linux is as serious of a server OS as exists in the world today. Companies like IBM and Oracle would never embrace a "hobby" OS in an enterprise setting. As for "occasional security horrors", sadly there is no OS of any flavor that is immune. "So what business problem does RISC-V solve?" For one thing, RISC-V offers the promise of fully open computer systems, without opaque black boxes anywhere providing potential back doors or other problems. The Intel AMT vulnerability is an excellent example of how that can go very wrong: https://www.ssh.com/vulnerability/intel-amt/ https://www.ssh.com/vulnerability/intel-amt/ RISC-V also provides a playground for smaller entities (like university labs) wishing to experiment with innovative new hardware techniques like Unums. That's very valuable in its own right. http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/170201-slides.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/170201-slides....

by tssva 10y ago

sweden 10y ago

I'm not saying that RISC-V is an hobby project, I'm just saying that hardware development is nowhere comparable to software development. You need much more support and verification while developing hardware then developing software. And while you can reuse the functional design (please note the keyword "functional"), the physical implementation needs to be redone from project to project. ARM, Intel, AMD, Apple and Qualcomm have an army of engineers with all kinds of tools that go through all the steps of hardware design and implementation which you can't do as a side project at home using just your computer.

TheOtherHobbes 10y ago

Linux is still a hobby OS. It's not a particularly wonderful example of software engineering. Its only real benefit is that it's free and comes with an ecosystem of other free software that kind of mostly works as long as you don't mind the occasional security horror, and can be used as-is or customised at relatively low cost. That combination of features makes it appealing in a variety of business cases - for business reasons. RISC-V can't be customised at relatively low cost. It's nominally free, but the freeness doesn't mean much in a business setting. The total cost of developing a custom core remains beyond the reach of small companies. Big companies already know there's an established ARM ecosystem with working compilers and a simple, risk-free, and relatively affordable business model. So what business problem does RISC-V solve?

Recurecur 10y ago
"Linux is still a hobby OS. It's not a particularly wonderful example of software engineering. Its only real benefit is that it's free and comes with an ecosystem of other free software that kind of mostly works as long as you don't mind the occasional security horror, and can be used as-is or customised at relatively low cost." That is complete nonsense. Linux, particularly Red Hat Enterprise Linux is as serious of a server OS as exists in the world today. Companies like IBM and Oracle would never embrace a "hobby" OS in an enterprise setting. As for "occasional security horrors", sadly there is no OS of any flavor that is immune. "So what business problem does RISC-V solve?" For one thing, RISC-V offers the promise of fully open computer systems, without opaque black boxes anywhere providing potential back doors or other problems. The Intel AMT vulnerability is an excellent example of how that can go very wrong: https://www.ssh.com/vulnerability/intel-amt/ https://www.ssh.com/vulnerability/intel-amt/ RISC-V also provides a playground for smaller entities (like university labs) wishing to experiment with innovative new hardware techniques like Unums. That's very valuable in its own right. http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/170201-slides.pdf http://web.stanford.edu/class/ee380/Abstracts/170201-slides....