4 ms·

This seems more like confusion over the difference between an open ISA and an open chip design on the part of policymakers than confusion over the meaning of “o

by jolux 2y ago

This seems more like confusion over the difference between an open ISA and an open chip design on the part of policymakers than confusion over the meaning of “open source”. Like perhaps they’re imagining some form of copyleft enforced by the ISA being open, even though it’s both liberally licensed and also nowhere near everything you need to make a chip.

ghaff 2y ago
Probably adding to the confusion in some circles is that past open hardware designs were basically the VERILOG files--an approach that tuned out not to be very useful from a collaboration perspective. The analogs between hardware and software are not exact.
- 0xcde4c3db 2y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean; people collaborate on Verilog files all the time. Some licensed or reverse-engineered designs are expressed in an ugly form of Verilog (much like decompiled or minified code), but that's not generally how it was originally written.
  - ghaff 2y ago
    Whatever the exact reasons, things like OpenSPARC never really took off. There may also also have been licensing or other gotchas.
    - Pet_Ant 2y ago
      Sun waited till Solaris and SPARC were no longer relevant before releasing anything. It smelled of desperation.
0xcde4c3db 2y ago
I don't think they're confused; I think they're worried about a robust RISC-V ecosystem weakening the ability of the US and its allies to influence the availability of processor technology by regulating licensing deals with the architecture "owners" like Intel, IBM, and ARM. From that perspective, the fact that open-source implementations are even allowed represents a potential threat (although I assume it's not long before ARMv7 runs out of essential patents, if it hasn't already).
- RetroTechie 2y ago
  US' grip on advanced cpu tech is weakening anyway. Long-term, RISC-V is bound to take a hefty bite out of x86 & ARM market share no matter what. Highest-performance AI accelerators (like Nvidia's latest), IP for high(est)-performing cores, and machines to manufacture those on the most advanced semiconductor nodes (see: ASML) is where it's at. Given that, fuzzing over ISAs is mostly pointless noise imho.
- jolux 2y ago
  > I don't think they're confused; I think they're worried about a robust RISC-V ecosystem weakening the ability of the US and its allies to influence the availability of processor technology by regulating licensing deals with the architecture "owners" like Intel, IBM, and ARM. I mean, this seems pretty questionable? There's nothing stopping them from regulating licensing deals with smaller companies.

by jolux 2y ago

ghaff 2y ago

Probably adding to the confusion in some circles is that past open hardware designs were basically the VERILOG files--an approach that tuned out not to be very useful from a collaboration perspective. The analogs between hardware and software are not exact.

0xcde4c3db 2y ago
I'm not sure what you mean; people collaborate on Verilog files all the time. Some licensed or reverse-engineered designs are expressed in an ugly form of Verilog (much like decompiled or minified code), but that's not generally how it was originally written.
- ghaff 2y ago
  Whatever the exact reasons, things like OpenSPARC never really took off. There may also also have been licensing or other gotchas.
  - Pet_Ant 2y ago
    Sun waited till Solaris and SPARC were no longer relevant before releasing anything. It smelled of desperation.

0xcde4c3db 2y ago

I don't think they're confused; I think they're worried about a robust RISC-V ecosystem weakening the ability of the US and its allies to influence the availability of processor technology by regulating licensing deals with the architecture "owners" like Intel, IBM, and ARM. From that perspective, the fact that open-source implementations are even allowed represents a potential threat (although I assume it's not long before ARMv7 runs out of essential patents, if it hasn't already).

RetroTechie 2y ago
US' grip on advanced cpu tech is weakening anyway. Long-term, RISC-V is bound to take a hefty bite out of x86 & ARM market share no matter what. Highest-performance AI accelerators (like Nvidia's latest), IP for high(est)-performing cores, and machines to manufacture those on the most advanced semiconductor nodes (see: ASML) is where it's at. Given that, fuzzing over ISAs is mostly pointless noise imho.
jolux 2y ago
> I don't think they're confused; I think they're worried about a robust RISC-V ecosystem weakening the ability of the US and its allies to influence the availability of processor technology by regulating licensing deals with the architecture "owners" like Intel, IBM, and ARM. I mean, this seems pretty questionable? There's nothing stopping them from regulating licensing deals with smaller companies.