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If the selling point of RISC-V is openness, then every RISC-V OEM so far has received an F for bundling in completely closed source graphics, that will likely n

by mouse_ 2y ago

If the selling point of RISC-V is openness, then every RISC-V OEM so far has received an F for bundling in completely closed source graphics, that will likely never allow kernel updates past the manufacturer/Imagination's extremely limited support cycle.

Pet_Ant 2y ago
> If the selling point of RISC-V is openness, then every RISC-V OEM so far has received an F for bundling in completely closed source graphics, The openness is at the __ISA__ level. So you don't get a duopoly like being forced to choose between Intel & AMD. It means that anyone can start up a company and produce a replacement with proprietary graphics. Yes, open source graphics would be nice, but that will have to follow a more open-standard CPU. So let's not put the cart before the horse, nor let the best be the enemy of the good. This is the next step.
dark-star 2y ago
As has been said elsewhere, the purpose of this board is not to be a Debian-friendly end-user product, but a developer tool. The focus is purely on the RISC-V side, not on having a fancy GPU available. I assume that adding the IMG GPU was cheaper and quicker than going for something more open, which is definitively a plus for the board at this time ALso it has a PCIe connector where you can (presumably) add your own GPU if you really want/need to develop next-gen 3D applications for RISC-V
freedomben 2y ago
I agree it's not ideal, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Eventually (hopefully) there will be an open GPU that can grow and gain adoption, but it will take time.
mort96 2y ago
The openness is working exactly as intended: companies left and right are designing their own RISC-V chips without having to pay exorbitant license fees to some IP holder for the rights.
lelanthran 2y ago
> every RISC-V OEM so far has received an F for bundling in completely closed source graphics, What's the alternative? I'm not aware of performant, open and cheap graphics options.
- snvzz 2y ago
  The alternative is to give you a PCIe slot so that you can plug your preferred video card. Note that they are already doing that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
brucehoult 2y ago
CPUs and GPUs are in very different situations. We've got 60 years of experience with RISC ISAs showing that they are as good as any other approach, since Seymour Cray's CDC6600 in 1964 (and of course his later Cray 1 in 1975 would also be called RISC today). By the late 70s researchers at IBM were also converging on the same ideas, as were academics at Berkeley via experience with the DEC VAX. Multiple RISC ISAs, with mostly only cosmetic differences between them, hit the market commercially in 1985 and 1986 -- almost 40 years ago. It's pretty clear what works, and for example Aarch64 and RISC-V were developed in parallel with each other [1], without either being aware of the other, but came up with very similar designs, both taking lessons of what to do and what not to do from MIPS, SPARC, Power, Arm32, Alpha and others. In contrast, the first modern programmable GPU was the NVIDIA GeForce 3 in 2001, just 23 years ago. Even today leading GPU vendors have not settled down on how a GPU should be designed. Every NVIDIA generation is radically different from the previous one and NVIDIA, AMD (ATI), Intel, Imagination GPUs are very different to each other -- and the exact details are still often closely kept secrets. NVIDIA doesn't let anyone program their CPUs directly, they provide a pseudo machine code (PTX) and different closed source compilers from PTX to each generation's real architecture. The chances of anyone coming up with the "forever" GPU design in the near future, let alone making it open, seem pretty slim. The whole field is still too new, changing too much. [1] Aarch64 clearly started earlier, and unexpectedly published the ARMv8-A spec in October 2011, 1 1/2 years after the RISC-V effort started, by which time the fundamentals of the RISC-V design were firmly established, though details continued to change for the next 7 years. The first Android phones with Arm64 CPUs (e.g. Galaxy S6) hit in early 2015, with SBCs (Raspberry Pi 3, Odroid C2) following in early 2016. The first commercial RISC-V board, the Arduino-style HiFive1 shipped in late 2016. Note that Apple's iPhone 5s launched with an Apple-designed ARMv8 CPU almost 1.5 years before Arm's own designs.

by mouse_ 2y ago

Pet_Ant 2y ago

> If the selling point of RISC-V is openness, then every RISC-V OEM so far has received an F for bundling in completely closed source graphics, The openness is at the __ISA__ level. So you don't get a duopoly like being forced to choose between Intel & AMD. It means that anyone can start up a company and produce a replacement with proprietary graphics. Yes, open source graphics would be nice, but that will have to follow a more open-standard CPU. So let's not put the cart before the horse, nor let the best be the enemy of the good. This is the next step.

dark-star 2y ago

As has been said elsewhere, the purpose of this board is not to be a Debian-friendly end-user product, but a developer tool. The focus is purely on the RISC-V side, not on having a fancy GPU available. I assume that adding the IMG GPU was cheaper and quicker than going for something more open, which is definitively a plus for the board at this time ALso it has a PCIe connector where you can (presumably) add your own GPU if you really want/need to develop next-gen 3D applications for RISC-V

freedomben 2y ago

I agree it's not ideal, but let's not let perfect be the enemy of good. Eventually (hopefully) there will be an open GPU that can grow and gain adoption, but it will take time.

mort96 2y ago

The openness is working exactly as intended: companies left and right are designing their own RISC-V chips without having to pay exorbitant license fees to some IP holder for the rights.

lelanthran 2y ago

> every RISC-V OEM so far has received an F for bundling in completely closed source graphics, What's the alternative? I'm not aware of performant, open and cheap graphics options.

snvzz 2y ago
The alternative is to give you a PCIe slot so that you can plug your preferred video card. Note that they are already doing that. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

brucehoult 2y ago

CPUs and GPUs are in very different situations. We've got 60 years of experience with RISC ISAs showing that they are as good as any other approach, since Seymour Cray's CDC6600 in 1964 (and of course his later Cray 1 in 1975 would also be called RISC today). By the late 70s researchers at IBM were also converging on the same ideas, as were academics at Berkeley via experience with the DEC VAX. Multiple RISC ISAs, with mostly only cosmetic differences between them, hit the market commercially in 1985 and 1986 -- almost 40 years ago. It's pretty clear what works, and for example Aarch64 and RISC-V were developed in parallel with each other [1], without either being aware of the other, but came up with very similar designs, both taking lessons of what to do and what not to do from MIPS, SPARC, Power, Arm32, Alpha and others. In contrast, the first modern programmable GPU was the NVIDIA GeForce 3 in 2001, just 23 years ago. Even today leading GPU vendors have not settled down on how a GPU should be designed. Every NVIDIA generation is radically different from the previous one and NVIDIA, AMD (ATI), Intel, Imagination GPUs are very different to each other -- and the exact details are still often closely kept secrets. NVIDIA doesn't let anyone program their CPUs directly, they provide a pseudo machine code (PTX) and different closed source compilers from PTX to each generation's real architecture. The chances of anyone coming up with the "forever" GPU design in the near future, let alone making it open, seem pretty slim. The whole field is still too new, changing too much. [1] Aarch64 clearly started earlier, and unexpectedly published the ARMv8-A spec in October 2011, 1 1/2 years after the RISC-V effort started, by which time the fundamentals of the RISC-V design were firmly established, though details continued to change for the next 7 years. The first Android phones with Arm64 CPUs (e.g. Galaxy S6) hit in early 2015, with SBCs (Raspberry Pi 3, Odroid C2) following in early 2016. The first commercial RISC-V board, the Arduino-style HiFive1 shipped in late 2016. Note that Apple's iPhone 5s launched with an Apple-designed ARMv8 CPU almost 1.5 years before Arm's own designs.