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No it isn't. PowerPC was never free. I think you mean OpenPOWER. Again that was just marketing, it wasn't free in anyway. Only the pressure of RISC-V lead to PO
by panick21_ 3y ago
No it isn't. PowerPC was never free. I think you mean OpenPOWER. Again that was just marketing, it wasn't free in anyway. Only the pressure of RISC-V lead to POWER and MIPS becoming more free over time.
And even if OpenSPARC had a open spec, but was only for 32bit. The 64 bit version would never become a standard. You need more then air dropping a spec. You need people to continue to push it forward and evolve it. You need to build a community around a standard. Sun simply wasn't interested in doing that, they just made a spec and left it there.
OpenSPARC had some success, being used for space by ESA for example. But it didn't get adoption in education. The venders of embedded chips were not interest. But the time was just not ready, the OpenSource ecosystem wasn't ready and the publisher (Sun) didn't care about embedded. The seperation between chip makers and fabs had not fully happened yet.
Saying that RISC-V is like POWER is just fundamentally false.
Saying RISC-V is like SPARC 32-bit is slightly more correct, but misses a whole lot context that is non-technical.
Yes we should give Sun credit for what they did with SPARC. But RISC-V is quite a different thing.
- pjmlp 3y agoUntil we get a RISC V computer on Media Markt being sold to average joe/jane, FOSS everything, it is going to be hardly any different.
- panick21_ 3y agoThat's just wrong and a simply depressive outlook for life. Saying things are only valuable if its for literally everybody just the wrong outlook. Having the ability to make open end to end things is valuable even if its not in every product. Linux shows up in lots of places where people are not aware and that is a good thing. The same thing will happen with RISC-V. And for people who like open, there will be product for those people. There are companies working on open board devices, laptops, boards and so on. And in the future maybe those could be open chip. The costumers of those products will not care if the PC at Media Market is a propriety computer with Windows on it. Your attitude would basically be that 'its hardly different' when OpenSource started to grow. But it was and is actually different for a lot of people and for the industry.
- pjmlp 3y agoThose people don't care one bit about how open their blue ray happens to be, even though Sony has based it on Linux and hardly contributed the changes to upstream, as means to reduce costs.
- panick21_ 3y agoAgain, I don't care what most people believe. Not sure why that matters so much to you. That simply doesn't mean nothing has changed.
- pjmlp 3y agoI guess the world needs dreamers.
- panick21_ 3y agoIt has nothing to do with dreams. I have an open hardware product with a RISC-V CPU on my desk right now. And its nice to have. I don't give a single shit if some random device from Media Market is open. The device I have provides real value to me now and that is a good thing. The idea that things are only relevant when media market costumers can buy them is just sad and depressive.
- worksonmine 3y agoAverage Joe and Jane still aren't buying Raspberry Pis, that doesn't mean the Pi didn't change hobby and DIY computing for the enthusiasts. Is your definition of success complete adoption? To me a 100% open phone that handles calls and data would be a huge win. I don't even need a camera, I don't use it. I don't care what the masses do, they will follow when the day comes just like they always do the mindless zombies that they are. Getting Debian officially supported is one of the necessary steps towards that goal.
- pjmlp 3y agoThey surely are, as parents for their kids school projects. Which is the reason why they were created in first place, UK's school system.
- snvzz 3y ago>OpenSPARC had some success, being used for space by ESA for example. ESA's OpenSPARC-based LEON. But note ESA has already decided to replace it with the RISC-V based NOEL.