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Software. There's tremendous inertia in apps which is what gave x86 an effective monopoly in the 90'es, even when superior options were available (hello Alpha)

Software. There's tremendous inertia in apps which is what gave x86 an effective monopoly in the 90'es, even when superior options were available (hello Alpha). Today the situation is actually better and with RISC-V having the same memory model as Arm, porting from an Arm version is way easier (Neon code not withstanding) but it's obviously way less attractive than running running existing code.

DoreenMichele 7y ago
So QWERTY keyboards all over again, basically.
- flmontpetit 7y ago
  "Literally every software and hardware market since computers became a commodity" all over again, you mean. They've always tended towards monopolies. IP law is harmful to society.
kllrnohj 7y ago
> Today the situation is actually better and with RISC-V having the same memory model as Arm, porting from an Arm version is way easier (Neon code not withstanding) It's really not any different today than it was. The memory model being similar is kinda nice, but you still need to convince the world to compile for another arch. And you need to make a CPU good enough to justify the recompile and ongoing multi-arch maintenance.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- FullyFunctional 7y ago
  IMO it's hugely different, at least in the server space. In the 90'es _all_ servers ran on proprietary platforms (OSes and micro-architectures). To succeed with an alternative, you had to convince your OS vendor (Microsoft, Sun, ...) to port. The most famous attempt Windows NT (ran on x86, PowerPC, Alpha, and possibly more), but the effort fizzled. Today, the MAJORITY of servers run Linux, even on Microsoft cloud platform, and a significant part of that is using primarily open source (eg. "LAMP"). If, say, RHEL supports your platform, it's fairly easy for most to move. Yes, it's not easy to migrate, but it is _way_ easier than it used to be. Now, non-server application is a different story.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

So QWERTY keyboards all over again, basically.

flmontpetit 7y ago
"Literally every software and hardware market since computers became a commodity" all over again, you mean. They've always tended towards monopolies. IP law is harmful to society.

kllrnohj 7y ago

> Today the situation is actually better and with RISC-V having the same memory model as Arm, porting from an Arm version is way easier (Neon code not withstanding) It's really not any different today than it was. The memory model being similar is kinda nice, but you still need to convince the world to compile for another arch. And you need to make a CPU good enough to justify the recompile and ongoing multi-arch maintenance.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
FullyFunctional 7y ago
IMO it's hugely different, at least in the server space. In the 90'es _all_ servers ran on proprietary platforms (OSes and micro-architectures). To succeed with an alternative, you had to convince your OS vendor (Microsoft, Sun, ...) to port. The most famous attempt Windows NT (ran on x86, PowerPC, Alpha, and possibly more), but the effort fizzled. Today, the MAJORITY of servers run Linux, even on Microsoft cloud platform, and a significant part of that is using primarily open source (eg. "LAMP"). If, say, RHEL supports your platform, it's fairly easy for most to move. Yes, it's not easy to migrate, but it is _way_ easier than it used to be. Now, non-server application is a different story.