5 ms·

That's like saying u won't see a general purpose, high performance, highly reliable open source operating system for servers and consumers, with a total develop

by ant6n 8y ago

That's like saying u won't see a general purpose, high performance, highly reliable open source operating system for servers and consumers, with a total development cost of more than a billion in terms of total person hours. Yet here we are.

phkahler 8y ago
And who would make a free Office suite? Or an open source tool chain (we have two now!), or EDA tools, web browser, audio/vide codecs, or.... Once you have a decent base and sufficient interest, peoples incremental changes will get there eventually.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  > Once you have a decent base and sufficient interest, peoples incremental changes will get there eventually. The size of a viable increment in a software project is much smaller than it is in a hardware project. Developing a functional, non-trivial microarchitecture requires significant capital expenditure and coordination of efforts. This requires at least a patron of some sorts to manage the process, where the requirements for that patron are much more significant than "somebody with a listserv".
  - debatem1 8y ago
    Nvidia is not ignorant of the realities of hardware design. Google spends capital to get what it wants. Western Digital is not just "somebody with a listserv". Once those players front the money for the ecosystem the incentive to coordinate is there on the fab side. With that in place and good simulation possible, the size of an incremental change is an exercise in release management.
jasonkostempski 8y ago
But software has basically no overhead to produce, improve, fix or deploy.
- ant6n 8y ago
  Low level changes in the kernel will probably take a long time and effort before they are deployed. Many kernel devs probably don't do their work because they need some particular fix for themselves, but rather to advance the overall product.
  - jasonkostempski 8y ago
    I'm not trying downplay the most amazing community effort humanity has ever seen. I'm just saying, if you want even a basic CPU, it will take far more generosity than that of a few humans to get it off the ground. Insanely more to fix one, if it's even possible, let alone practical.
    - ant6n 8y ago
      The initial versions of Linux weren't useful except for people playing around with it -- kind of like RISC-V cpus aren't useful today, except people playing around with fpgas. But it does allow you to relatively easily deploy your CPU using this route. I'm saying that much linux development nowadays is done far away from actual deployment, just like open source cpu design would be. Also, it's often paid and driven by companies who have an interest in the existence in these open platforms, so it's not all just based on generosity (and we do see companies are interested in RISC-V cpus).
tambourine_man 8y ago
With software, you donate your time and you get the final product. With hardware, someone, at some point, is going to have to pay to press those chips into real silicon.
Nokinside 8y ago
You repeat very common misconception and false analogy. You don't get high volume processor core into silicon by just hacking Verilog/VHDL in your computer and then send it to the foundry for tape-out and manufacturing like you do with some custom ASIC chip. Intel and AMD start new microarchitecture design work every 2-3 years. The work must progress in tight time schedule or it becomes outdated. It's highly coordinated effort that requires significant capital investment. You have to lock in goals, select implementation technology, methodology, have expensive tools etc. Behavioral design, physical design and silicon ramp interact constantly. Problems are solved and there are many optimization and validation phases. You need expensive hardware and access to engineers in the foundry and process you are targeting. I'm sure there will be many completely open RISC-V cores, but not for the high volume uses or latest processes.
- tonysdg 8y ago
  You yourself repeat a very common misconception and false analogy. Intel and AMD start new microarchitecture design work every 2-3 years because (Intel, at least) base their sales on offering the latest and greatest. They seek peak performance, which is exactly what gamers/scientists/prosumers want. But for large swaths of the market, you don't need that. Think of your average consumer/small business owner. By and large, most of them are using 3-5 year old PCs, and even then the processors within those 3-5 year old PCs were probably last-gen when they were purchased. Or think military -- the ability to have a home-grown, openly-vetted processor that you can tape out with a trusted domestic supplier would eliminate a number of security concerns. Don't let great be the enemy of good here. If you can build a decent RISC-V core that can compete with an Intel Core 2 Duo, you've got all the horsepower you need for the average consumer.
  - freeone3000 8y ago
    Core 2 Duo? You're aiming way too high here. A RISC-V core that can compete with a Cortex A9 or a Snapdragon 820 would be exceptional.
    - tonysdg 8y ago
valuearb 8y ago
Writing software doesn’t require massive investments of capital like making chips does. And if open source processors feature the same attention to detail and high engineering standards that most open source software projects evidence, they’ll frequently catch on fire or stop working without multiple bug fix patches.

by ant6n 8y ago

phkahler 8y ago

And who would make a free Office suite? Or an open source tool chain (we have two now!), or EDA tools, web browser, audio/vide codecs, or.... Once you have a decent base and sufficient interest, peoples incremental changes will get there eventually.

vonmoltke 8y ago
> Once you have a decent base and sufficient interest, peoples incremental changes will get there eventually. The size of a viable increment in a software project is much smaller than it is in a hardware project. Developing a functional, non-trivial microarchitecture requires significant capital expenditure and coordination of efforts. This requires at least a patron of some sorts to manage the process, where the requirements for that patron are much more significant than "somebody with a listserv".
- debatem1 8y ago
  Nvidia is not ignorant of the realities of hardware design. Google spends capital to get what it wants. Western Digital is not just "somebody with a listserv". Once those players front the money for the ecosystem the incentive to coordinate is there on the fab side. With that in place and good simulation possible, the size of an incremental change is an exercise in release management.

jasonkostempski 8y ago

But software has basically no overhead to produce, improve, fix or deploy.

ant6n 8y ago
Low level changes in the kernel will probably take a long time and effort before they are deployed. Many kernel devs probably don't do their work because they need some particular fix for themselves, but rather to advance the overall product.
- jasonkostempski 8y ago
  I'm not trying downplay the most amazing community effort humanity has ever seen. I'm just saying, if you want even a basic CPU, it will take far more generosity than that of a few humans to get it off the ground. Insanely more to fix one, if it's even possible, let alone practical.
  - ant6n 8y ago
    The initial versions of Linux weren't useful except for people playing around with it -- kind of like RISC-V cpus aren't useful today, except people playing around with fpgas. But it does allow you to relatively easily deploy your CPU using this route. I'm saying that much linux development nowadays is done far away from actual deployment, just like open source cpu design would be. Also, it's often paid and driven by companies who have an interest in the existence in these open platforms, so it's not all just based on generosity (and we do see companies are interested in RISC-V cpus).

tambourine_man 8y ago

With software, you donate your time and you get the final product. With hardware, someone, at some point, is going to have to pay to press those chips into real silicon.

Nokinside 8y ago

You repeat very common misconception and false analogy. You don't get high volume processor core into silicon by just hacking Verilog/VHDL in your computer and then send it to the foundry for tape-out and manufacturing like you do with some custom ASIC chip. Intel and AMD start new microarchitecture design work every 2-3 years. The work must progress in tight time schedule or it becomes outdated. It's highly coordinated effort that requires significant capital investment. You have to lock in goals, select implementation technology, methodology, have expensive tools etc. Behavioral design, physical design and silicon ramp interact constantly. Problems are solved and there are many optimization and validation phases. You need expensive hardware and access to engineers in the foundry and process you are targeting. I'm sure there will be many completely open RISC-V cores, but not for the high volume uses or latest processes.

tonysdg 8y ago
You yourself repeat a very common misconception and false analogy. Intel and AMD start new microarchitecture design work every 2-3 years because (Intel, at least) base their sales on offering the latest and greatest. They seek peak performance, which is exactly what gamers/scientists/prosumers want. But for large swaths of the market, you don't need that. Think of your average consumer/small business owner. By and large, most of them are using 3-5 year old PCs, and even then the processors within those 3-5 year old PCs were probably last-gen when they were purchased. Or think military -- the ability to have a home-grown, openly-vetted processor that you can tape out with a trusted domestic supplier would eliminate a number of security concerns. Don't let great be the enemy of good here. If you can build a decent RISC-V core that can compete with an Intel Core 2 Duo, you've got all the horsepower you need for the average consumer.
- freeone3000 8y ago
  Core 2 Duo? You're aiming way too high here. A RISC-V core that can compete with a Cortex A9 or a Snapdragon 820 would be exceptional.
  - tonysdg 8y ago

valuearb 8y ago

Writing software doesn’t require massive investments of capital like making chips does. And if open source processors feature the same attention to detail and high engineering standards that most open source software projects evidence, they’ll frequently catch on fire or stop working without multiple bug fix patches.