5 ms·

First, it's still a fairly closed platform. Whatever work being done on reverse engineering it and finding out what its components do is being done by third par

First, it's still a fairly closed platform. Whatever work being done on reverse engineering it and finding out what its components do is being done by third parties and even though it's already possible to run Linux somewhat, it's hard to say we'll be ever able to use 100% of the platform capabilities without Apple's help. Even if we do that with M1, Apple will change things in M2, it's going to be a cat-and-mouse game. Apple has zero motivation to help these efforts (heck, they would try to stop it if the law allowed). So although RISC-V is far away behind M1 now, I very much hope in quiet gradual improvements here until a tipping point when somebody realizes it's actually a competitive platform not just for industrial use cases but also for general computing.

vbezhenar 5y ago
> they would try to stop it if the law allowed What law? They locked down iPhone and law does not care. How is it different for Mac? The could've locked down their M1 Macs, but they deliberately chose not to.
- lifeisstillgood 5y ago
  I think the parent comment was refering to law(s) preventing reverse engineering of hardware - thus "Apple would prevent people reverse engineering the M1 if they could". "locked down" from your comment as I understand it, is just making it hard to gain root on the device. Nothing in most Western law prevents you or I from jailbreaking the phone or cracking it open and looking at it under a microscope or whatever. Thats good. What would be perfect is of course publish schematics and manuals etc.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
xenadu02 5y ago
The Mac remains the Mac. That is not changing. That has been repeated by Apple executives publicly many times. Part of the Mac's heritage is that you can turn off the guard rails and take control of your system, including installing things like kernel extensions. These are not things most users should need to do - secure by default is very important - but they remain possible. Others have documented the engineering that went into a new boot system for the M1 to make multi-boot and custom kernels possible. Engineering that would be pointless if no one were expected to use it.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  FWIW, my conversations have (to me) painted a different picture around the future of kernel extensions: it seems like they will only continue to exist until the last large company that relies on them doesn't have a userspace API replacement. The remainder seems accurate, but I would really love for Apple to allow me to put up the guardrails again but in a way that I control…
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    That has been the official message at all WWDC talks since userspace extensions have been introduced. Actually I look forward to it, eventually Linux and BSD will stand alone as the only classical monolithic kernels, which is kind of ironic, given how much containers and hypervisors they get loaded with anyway.
klelatti 5y ago
Whilst I applaud what RISC-V is doing I do find comments like this a bit frustrating: - M1 machines are 'closed' because of Apple and not because of the CPU architecture. They could adopt RISC-V and the GPU and drivers would still be closed etc. - M1 is fast because Apple have invested a lot in building an outstanding CPU design team and the economics of their business allow them to fabricate on the latest TSMC node. - Apple could have locked down the M1 machines much more completely than they have done. If you want fast 'open' systems you need to work out how to incentivise firms to build systems in this way. RISC-V will not magically get there on its own because its a more 'open' ISA than ARM. In the meantime credit to those who are working out how to get the most out of the M1.
- geogra4 5y ago
  I applaud talos for making fast, modern workstations[0] with an OpenPower CPU. This is probably the best you'll get today for a fast, secure, open workstation. RISC-V is not there yet. 0: https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html#sidebar-show https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html#sidebar-s...

vbezhenar 5y ago

> they would try to stop it if the law allowed What law? They locked down iPhone and law does not care. How is it different for Mac? The could've locked down their M1 Macs, but they deliberately chose not to.

lifeisstillgood 5y ago
I think the parent comment was refering to law(s) preventing reverse engineering of hardware - thus "Apple would prevent people reverse engineering the M1 if they could". "locked down" from your comment as I understand it, is just making it hard to gain root on the device. Nothing in most Western law prevents you or I from jailbreaking the phone or cracking it open and looking at it under a microscope or whatever. Thats good. What would be perfect is of course publish schematics and manuals etc.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

xenadu02 5y ago

The Mac remains the Mac. That is not changing. That has been repeated by Apple executives publicly many times. Part of the Mac's heritage is that you can turn off the guard rails and take control of your system, including installing things like kernel extensions. These are not things most users should need to do - secure by default is very important - but they remain possible. Others have documented the engineering that went into a new boot system for the M1 to make multi-boot and custom kernels possible. Engineering that would be pointless if no one were expected to use it.

saagarjha 5y ago
FWIW, my conversations have (to me) painted a different picture around the future of kernel extensions: it seems like they will only continue to exist until the last large company that relies on them doesn't have a userspace API replacement. The remainder seems accurate, but I would really love for Apple to allow me to put up the guardrails again but in a way that I control…
- pjmlp 5y ago
  That has been the official message at all WWDC talks since userspace extensions have been introduced. Actually I look forward to it, eventually Linux and BSD will stand alone as the only classical monolithic kernels, which is kind of ironic, given how much containers and hypervisors they get loaded with anyway.

klelatti 5y ago

Whilst I applaud what RISC-V is doing I do find comments like this a bit frustrating: - M1 machines are 'closed' because of Apple and not because of the CPU architecture. They could adopt RISC-V and the GPU and drivers would still be closed etc. - M1 is fast because Apple have invested a lot in building an outstanding CPU design team and the economics of their business allow them to fabricate on the latest TSMC node. - Apple could have locked down the M1 machines much more completely than they have done. If you want fast 'open' systems you need to work out how to incentivise firms to build systems in this way. RISC-V will not magically get there on its own because its a more 'open' ISA than ARM. In the meantime credit to those who are working out how to get the most out of the M1.

geogra4 5y ago
I applaud talos for making fast, modern workstations[0] with an OpenPower CPU. This is probably the best you'll get today for a fast, secure, open workstation. RISC-V is not there yet. 0: https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html#sidebar-show https://www.raptorcs.com/content/TL2WK2/intro.html#sidebar-s...