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> but I don't see the vector for getting them into general distribution There once was a time when Linux was this teeny little player. Many people thought it

> but I don't see the vector for getting them into general distribution There once was a time when Linux was this teeny little player. Many people thought it would never amount to anything. After all Microsoft was the big player, support and tooling for it was everywhere. It was possible to license it for embedded use. The only benefit of Linux was freedom, and that can't possibly be enough of a benefit.

cwyers 8y ago
Linux didn't start off competing with Windows, it started off competing with commercial UNIX. (Most people were running Linux on hardware that had Windows licensing costs rolled in.) The price gap between Linux and a "real" UNIX were huge, especially given that you had to buy hardware to match. Is RISC-V really a huge difference in price for any ARM CPU (as opposed to ISA) licensee?
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  > it started off competing with commercial UNIX It started off as a Unix-like toy/learning-platform that people could run on devices too cheap to run Unix. Then it evolved into a Unix that people could use on devices too cheap to run real Unixes. It took the best part of a decade to make it competitive with the other Unixes. What just reinforces your point, I guess.
- TomVDB 8y ago
  This was discussed just a couple of days ago here as well, so I'll just link to one of my comments there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19119398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19119398 So the answer is: it really depends. I think RISC-V will quickly infiltrate the invisible on-chip microcontrollers. The ones that manage power regulation, SDRAM calibration training, etc. There is very little friction there. Then it will slowly enter low cost microcontrollers where cost is absolutely essential. The high-end will be IMO negligible for years to come.
  - rwmj 8y ago
    This! I gave a talk about how difficult it will be for RISC-V to enter the server space: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/my-talk-from-the-risc-v-workshop-in-barcelona/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/my-talk-from-the-risc-... For full disclosure, I work for Red Hat and am keeping an eye on RISC-V for servers, and I hope it does succeed but there's a mountain to climb and lots of ways to screw up.
- pjmlp 8y ago
  Quite right Linux contributed more to commercial UNIXes downfall than anything else. For example, gcc was pretty much ignored until Sun started the trend of selling UNIX SDK tooling instead of bundling it with the OS.
- protomikron 8y ago
  But there was definitely a time where Linux was competing with Minix, which was low price (affordable to a Hacker) and had more features. However its development wasn't done in the open and it was not "free" (in the FOSS) sense, so it's usage in a specific setting (e.g. commercial) was not possible. I guess Linux open license played a huge role in its adoption and not just the fact that it was free as in "beer" (compared to expensive traditional Unix systems) - and within a short time it surpassed Minix features. There might be disagreements about technical choices made (see legendary conversation about kernel architecture), but in terms of features it surpassed Minix in a short time (and today sets the state of the art for commercial Unices).
zepto 8y ago
There’s no analogy here. It only took a few hundred dollars worth of hardware to use Linux back in the day, and a windows license was a significant percentage of that. To use a chip architecture? It takes a design team and booking of fab time. I.e. 10s of millions of dollars.
pjmlp 8y ago
That teeny little player profited from the contributions from IBM, Intel, Compaq, Oracle, and nowadays even Microsoft. Non-copyleft UNIX clones weren't so lucky. Even if RISC-V succeeds in the market, there isn't any guarantee that we won't have a plethora of incompatible extensions.

cwyers 8y ago

Linux didn't start off competing with Windows, it started off competing with commercial UNIX. (Most people were running Linux on hardware that had Windows licensing costs rolled in.) The price gap between Linux and a "real" UNIX were huge, especially given that you had to buy hardware to match. Is RISC-V really a huge difference in price for any ARM CPU (as opposed to ISA) licensee?

marcosdumay 8y ago
> it started off competing with commercial UNIX It started off as a Unix-like toy/learning-platform that people could run on devices too cheap to run Unix. Then it evolved into a Unix that people could use on devices too cheap to run real Unixes. It took the best part of a decade to make it competitive with the other Unixes. What just reinforces your point, I guess.
TomVDB 8y ago
This was discussed just a couple of days ago here as well, so I'll just link to one of my comments there: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19119398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19119398 So the answer is: it really depends. I think RISC-V will quickly infiltrate the invisible on-chip microcontrollers. The ones that manage power regulation, SDRAM calibration training, etc. There is very little friction there. Then it will slowly enter low cost microcontrollers where cost is absolutely essential. The high-end will be IMO negligible for years to come.
- rwmj 8y ago
  This! I gave a talk about how difficult it will be for RISC-V to enter the server space: https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/my-talk-from-the-risc-v-workshop-in-barcelona/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2018/05/21/my-talk-from-the-risc-... For full disclosure, I work for Red Hat and am keeping an eye on RISC-V for servers, and I hope it does succeed but there's a mountain to climb and lots of ways to screw up.
pjmlp 8y ago
Quite right Linux contributed more to commercial UNIXes downfall than anything else. For example, gcc was pretty much ignored until Sun started the trend of selling UNIX SDK tooling instead of bundling it with the OS.
protomikron 8y ago
But there was definitely a time where Linux was competing with Minix, which was low price (affordable to a Hacker) and had more features. However its development wasn't done in the open and it was not "free" (in the FOSS) sense, so it's usage in a specific setting (e.g. commercial) was not possible. I guess Linux open license played a huge role in its adoption and not just the fact that it was free as in "beer" (compared to expensive traditional Unix systems) - and within a short time it surpassed Minix features. There might be disagreements about technical choices made (see legendary conversation about kernel architecture), but in terms of features it surpassed Minix in a short time (and today sets the state of the art for commercial Unices).

zepto 8y ago

There’s no analogy here. It only took a few hundred dollars worth of hardware to use Linux back in the day, and a windows license was a significant percentage of that. To use a chip architecture? It takes a design team and booking of fab time. I.e. 10s of millions of dollars.

pjmlp 8y ago

That teeny little player profited from the contributions from IBM, Intel, Compaq, Oracle, and nowadays even Microsoft. Non-copyleft UNIX clones weren't so lucky. Even if RISC-V succeeds in the market, there isn't any guarantee that we won't have a plethora of incompatible extensions.