4 ms·

What’s the strategy in open sourcing this?

by m3kw9 2y ago

slongfield 2y ago
They presented at HotChips 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_R0S6piLA0&t=2114s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_R0S6piLA0&t=2114s There, one of the things they mentioned was that they were hoping that RISC-V in general, and their cores in particular, becomes a platform for academic research. That way, cutting-edge things are shared in the open and the industry benefits globally. The optimistic view of this is that it's hoping for a better future for all. The cynical view is that open source is much harder to sanction/export control. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - jazzyjackson 2y ago
    get off it. americans are not the only people in the world that can invent and innovate.
    - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
      But it’s true that most inventions and innovations in the last 100 years have come from Americans (with work from immigrants, descendants of immigrants, etc). China’s progress economically and technologically has almost entirely been copying those innovations and competing on price due to poor labor and environmental laws and conditions. In many cases it literally involved espionage, and in others it involved unethical stealing from partners or even customers (for example companies that used a manufacturer there).
      - phkahler 2y ago
        >> China’s progress economically and technologically has almost entirely been copying those innovations and competing on price due to poor labor and environmental laws and conditions. That may have been true for a while when they were catching up. They are now leading R&D in a number of areas. They do have more issues (fraud, piling on co-authors) in published research, but there is a lot of legit stuff going on too. There are also cases where China has always been ahead of the US - flat panel displays have never really been manufactured in the U.S. for example. A lot of their innovations are also seen as "just cost reduction" on our end, but that still counts and is part of why they're still competitive even as their labor costs go up.
      - mattlondon 2y ago
        > But it’s true that most inventions and innovations in the last 100 years have come from Americans Citation needed. That seems implausible.
        littlestymaar 2y ago
        As world's first economic power, the US has indeed be the home of plenty of inventions and innovations, but of course it's not “most” of them.
        nobunaga 2y ago
        Its idiotic to focus on the last 100 years. Those american innovations you mention came on the shoulders of innovations from the arabs, romans, ottomans and many other cultures/societies before them. Where is the praise for them? Why are we so focused on who is the best. We seriously need a population reset. People can be so idiotic and self absorbed.
        bobim 2y ago
        A large chunk of our western innovations are rooted in "1936" german research. US space program? From Mr Von Braun who was allowed on US land through operation paperclip. Axial jet engine?From Junkers Motoren engine propelling the Me 262. Modern submarines? From u-boats type XXI. Assault rifle? MP43. Highways, synthetic fuel, a lot of modern chemistry... So no, US did not come with most of the last 100s years innovations.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        nineteen999 2y ago
        Refrigeration was invented by an Australian of Scottish descent. As an Australian I like to think of this every time I open a cold beer.
        panick21_ 2y ago
        Spotted the Wehraboo in the wild.
    - wyager 2y ago
      And yet 95% of novel IP...
      - saagarjha 2y ago
        Not true. Plus, this only works if you value IP, which not everyone does.
      - jazzyjackson 2y ago
        A side effect of extreme litigiousness
    - tomcam 2y ago
      Did GP say that americans are not the only people in the world that can invent and innovate?
  - digitalsurgeonz 2y ago
    [flagged]
blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
The strategy is to do PR for China, market for adoption (to break chip duopoly), get contributions (free work), and build momentum to a point where the tech is commoditized (so they can be immune to sanctions).
- cookiemonsieur 2y ago
  then that's a good strategy. It's about time the world takes on western dominance.
szundi 2y ago
Other motive could be to undermine western dominance in chip design. You give away free a good enough thing that is competing with your competitor's moat. If the gap is not that significant this can ruin the business for your competitor. You can see the same with Apple and all big tech funding OpenStreetMap for example vs Google Maps. Even decreasing income for the competitor is worth it strategically. Or Satya Nadella saying in an interview that if ChatGPT just makes Google's costs higher for search is a big win for Microsoft.
- whatever1 2y ago
  Yep. Once espressif gave us the esp32 with 50 cents each we completely forgot about arm etc.
crvdgc 2y ago
Realistically, it's probably the group inside the Chinese Academy of Sciences wanting for a larger impact factor for their review, similar to all other state sponsored researching institutes.
jurschreuder 2y ago
Universities always make things open source. I also make everything open source that I make for the university. It's because you cannot make money with it anyway and the university often allows it, so then it's really good for your CV. In Europe there is also a lot of stuff open source, and I can honestly say there is no plot by the government to destroy the United States. I don't think Linux is a plan by the Swedish government to destroy the USA. Most Chinese people in my experience also don't really have any country outside of China on their radar, unless they are in some trading business. China is just so huge compared to for example the US, they really live in their own bubble. It's not something they think about on a monthly let alone daily basis is my personal experience.
- miki123211 2y ago
  And if you want to do a commercial spin-off from your university work, it might be easier to put it all out as MIT/BSD/Apache and then start a completely independent company than to deal with all the paperwork. This makes life easier for competitors, so it's definitely a tradeoff, but it's the right tradeoff in some circumstances.
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    > This makes life easier for competitors, I think this is greatly overstated. Generally it's just sheer volume of capital and dedication to building a business that dictates market advantage, not any given persons' knowledge or know-how (though that's obviously worth paying for if you have the capital). I'd argue the primary reason why proprietary ownership of software exists isn't to make life harder for competitors but rather to make it harder for folks to figure out what they're actually paying for and bypassing the fees to actually fix (let alone improve) the software.
- usrnm 2y ago
  > I don't think Linux is a plan by the Swedish government to destroy the USA. Linus comes from a family of ethnic Swedes, but he was born and raised in Finland, the Swedish government had nothing to do with it.

What’s the strategy in open sourcing this?

by m3kw9 2y ago

What’s the strategy in open sourcing this?

They presented at HotChips 2024: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_R0S6piLA0&t=2114s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_R0S6piLA0&t=2114s There, one of the things they mentioned was that they were hoping that RISC-V in general, and their cores in particular, becomes a platform for academic research. That way, cutting-edge things are shared in the open and the industry benefits globally. The optimistic view of this is that it's hoping for a better future for all. The cynical view is that open source is much harder to sanction/export control. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

lenerdenator 2y ago
[flagged]
- jazzyjackson 2y ago
  get off it. americans are not the only people in the world that can invent and innovate.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    But it’s true that most inventions and innovations in the last 100 years have come from Americans (with work from immigrants, descendants of immigrants, etc). China’s progress economically and technologically has almost entirely been copying those innovations and competing on price due to poor labor and environmental laws and conditions. In many cases it literally involved espionage, and in others it involved unethical stealing from partners or even customers (for example companies that used a manufacturer there).
    - phkahler 2y ago
      >> China’s progress economically and technologically has almost entirely been copying those innovations and competing on price due to poor labor and environmental laws and conditions. That may have been true for a while when they were catching up. They are now leading R&D in a number of areas. They do have more issues (fraud, piling on co-authors) in published research, but there is a lot of legit stuff going on too. There are also cases where China has always been ahead of the US - flat panel displays have never really been manufactured in the U.S. for example. A lot of their innovations are also seen as "just cost reduction" on our end, but that still counts and is part of why they're still competitive even as their labor costs go up.
    - mattlondon 2y ago
      > But it’s true that most inventions and innovations in the last 100 years have come from Americans Citation needed. That seems implausible.
      - littlestymaar 2y ago
        As world's first economic power, the US has indeed be the home of plenty of inventions and innovations, but of course it's not “most” of them.
        nobunaga 2y ago
        Its idiotic to focus on the last 100 years. Those american innovations you mention came on the shoulders of innovations from the arabs, romans, ottomans and many other cultures/societies before them. Where is the praise for them? Why are we so focused on who is the best. We seriously need a population reset. People can be so idiotic and self absorbed.
        bobim 2y ago
        A large chunk of our western innovations are rooted in "1936" german research. US space program? From Mr Von Braun who was allowed on US land through operation paperclip. Axial jet engine?From Junkers Motoren engine propelling the Me 262. Modern submarines? From u-boats type XXI. Assault rifle? MP43. Highways, synthetic fuel, a lot of modern chemistry... So no, US did not come with most of the last 100s years innovations.
        deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
        nineteen999 2y ago
        Refrigeration was invented by an Australian of Scottish descent. As an Australian I like to think of this every time I open a cold beer.
        panick21_ 2y ago
        Spotted the Wehraboo in the wild.
  - wyager 2y ago
    And yet 95% of novel IP...
    - saagarjha 2y ago
      Not true. Plus, this only works if you value IP, which not everyone does.
    - jazzyjackson 2y ago
      A side effect of extreme litigiousness
  - tomcam 2y ago
    Did GP say that americans are not the only people in the world that can invent and innovate?
- digitalsurgeonz 2y ago
  [flagged]

blackeyeblitzar 2y ago

The strategy is to do PR for China, market for adoption (to break chip duopoly), get contributions (free work), and build momentum to a point where the tech is commoditized (so they can be immune to sanctions).

cookiemonsieur 2y ago
then that's a good strategy. It's about time the world takes on western dominance.

szundi 2y ago

Other motive could be to undermine western dominance in chip design. You give away free a good enough thing that is competing with your competitor's moat. If the gap is not that significant this can ruin the business for your competitor. You can see the same with Apple and all big tech funding OpenStreetMap for example vs Google Maps. Even decreasing income for the competitor is worth it strategically. Or Satya Nadella saying in an interview that if ChatGPT just makes Google's costs higher for search is a big win for Microsoft.

whatever1 2y ago
Yep. Once espressif gave us the esp32 with 50 cents each we completely forgot about arm etc.

crvdgc 2y ago

Realistically, it's probably the group inside the Chinese Academy of Sciences wanting for a larger impact factor for their review, similar to all other state sponsored researching institutes.

jurschreuder 2y ago

Universities always make things open source. I also make everything open source that I make for the university. It's because you cannot make money with it anyway and the university often allows it, so then it's really good for your CV. In Europe there is also a lot of stuff open source, and I can honestly say there is no plot by the government to destroy the United States. I don't think Linux is a plan by the Swedish government to destroy the USA. Most Chinese people in my experience also don't really have any country outside of China on their radar, unless they are in some trading business. China is just so huge compared to for example the US, they really live in their own bubble. It's not something they think about on a monthly let alone daily basis is my personal experience.

miki123211 2y ago
And if you want to do a commercial spin-off from your university work, it might be easier to put it all out as MIT/BSD/Apache and then start a completely independent company than to deal with all the paperwork. This makes life easier for competitors, so it's definitely a tradeoff, but it's the right tradeoff in some circumstances.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  > This makes life easier for competitors, I think this is greatly overstated. Generally it's just sheer volume of capital and dedication to building a business that dictates market advantage, not any given persons' knowledge or know-how (though that's obviously worth paying for if you have the capital). I'd argue the primary reason why proprietary ownership of software exists isn't to make life harder for competitors but rather to make it harder for folks to figure out what they're actually paying for and bypassing the fees to actually fix (let alone improve) the software.
usrnm 2y ago
> I don't think Linux is a plan by the Swedish government to destroy the USA. Linus comes from a family of ethnic Swedes, but he was born and raised in Finland, the Swedish government had nothing to do with it.