4 ms·
The PC model worked because a lot of people put a lot of blood sweat and tears into making it work and then embraced the sunk cost fallacy to a degree only prev
by eschaton 4y ago
The PC model worked because a lot of people put a lot of blood sweat and tears into making it work and then embraced the sunk cost fallacy to a degree only previously seen in politics and religion.
Open Firmware—between the device tree system and the bytecode driver system—plus ELF provide a truly universal boot protocol for 32-bit and larger systems. And not only that, major and tractable implementations are now Open Source too, including things like the bytecode compilers.
It’s practically unconscionable that modern ARM and RISC-V don’t simply require Open Firmware boot support.
- snvzz 4y agoIn RISC-V, the boot model is standarized. There's SBI (from years ago, where the open implementation opensbi is used by most boards) and UEFI (implemented not in any random way, but after SBI runs, and as per the spec published earlier this year). All the pieces are in place for RISC-V to effectively dodge boot chaos. Way before the server/workstation RISC-V hardware hit the market. In ARM, it's a mess. Because ARM took way too long to do way too little re: boot standardization.
- raxxorraxor 4y agoYou also have to look at ARMs largest customers. This influences development and the most prominent aren't necessarily interested in ARM becoming a more open platform. Which it fundamentally isn't just as x86.