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> Companies like Qualcomm would have zero incentives to share their designs with anyone. And yet, that's what linux did in 1991- they shared the code, lowering
by initramfs 2y ago
> Companies like Qualcomm would have zero incentives to share their designs with anyone.
And yet, that's what linux did in 1991- they shared the code, lowering the cost of buying an operating system. I wouldn't say there is zero incentive, but it certainly lowers the incentive without a profitable complementary hardware implementation that can be sold for less than the proprietary isa when there is a royalty free license allows the manufacturer/fab designer "mask rights" to get a small margin within the difference of the foundry/ISA proprietary core competitor.
- ywvcbk 2y agoHardware is not software. Almost nothing alike. Surr it might happen for low-end/old chips with low margins but nothing cutting edge or competitive on the high-end
- initramfs 2y agosoftware used to be hardware limited, and therefore efficient. Today Software relies on many more transistors per joule to compute a number of operations in high-level languages. I'd agree 22nm isn't leading edge, but foundries like Skywater could theoretically provide more options at 65nm and 90nm in coming years that are fully open source, except for the cost of the foundry technique perhaps: https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/1130-19.07.18-Luke-Leighton-Software-Libre-Engineer-Advocate.pdf https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/1130-19.07.18-L...
- ywvcbk 2y agoYes, I think we might be talking about slightly different things. I don’t really see OS model working for higher-end / leading-edge chips. In segments where chips are almost an interchangeable commodity and the R&D cost might be insignificant relative to manufacturing/foundry it would make a lot more sense.