3 ms·

Maybe it helps get government contracts “We’re standards compliant”

by boredatoms 1y ago

userbinator 1y ago
It's not like ARM and x86 are standardised by ISO either.
- signa11 1y ago
  they are de-facto…
- eru 1y ago
  Yes, but if 30 years ago ARM had an ISO standard they could point to, that would have probably helped with government adoption? (It's still a trade-off, because standards also cost community time and effort.)
  - userbinator 1y ago
    Relatedly, 30 years ago someone attempted to turn the Windows 3.1 API into an ISO standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Programming_Interface_for_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Programming_Interf... It didn't become one, but it did become standardised as ECMA-234: https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-234/ https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/st...
    - eru 1y ago
      Well, Wine shows that Win32 is the only stable ABI, even on Linux.
      - GoblinSlayer 1y ago
        >On May 5, 1993, Sun Microsystems announced Windows Application Binary Interface (WABI), a product to run Windows software on Unix, and the Public Windows Interface (PWI) initiative, an effort to standardize a subset of the popular 16-bit Windows APIs. >In February 1994, the PWI Specification Committee sent a draft specification to X/Open—who rejected it in March, after being threatened by Microsoft's assertion of intellectual property rights (IPR) over the Windows APIs Looks like that's what it was.
- miki123211 1y ago
  Governments seem to care about "self-sufficiency" a lot more these days, especially after what's happening in both China and the US right now. If the choice is between an architecture owned, patented and managed by a single company domiciled in a foreign country, versus one which is an international standard and has multiple competing vendors, the latter suddenly seems a lot more attractive. Price and performance don't matter that much. Governments are a lot less price-sensitive than consumers (and even businesses), they're willing to spend money to achieve their goals.
- aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
  Yes, and they're both massively debated and criticised, to the point that the industry developed Risk-V in the firstplace. Not to mention the rugpull licensing ARM pulled a few years back.
- lambdaone 1y ago
  This is exactly what makes this such an interesting development. Standardization is part of the process of the CPU industry becoming a mature industry not dependent on the whims of individual companies. Boring, yes, but also stable.
chithanh 1y ago
Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Like when Sun Microsystems submitted ODF for standardization to ISO, it was so successful that Microsoft had to do it too for OOXML. In fact MS pushed so hard that it left a huge trail of destruction in the standards committees. Other times, like with the "ISO power plug", the result was ISO/IEC 60906-1 which nobody uses. Swiss plugs (IEC Type J), which this plug is based on, use a slightly different distance for the ground pin, so it is incompatible. Brazil adopted it (IEC Type N) but made changes to pin diameter and current rating.

Maybe it helps get government contracts “We’re standards compliant”

userbinator 1y ago

It's not like ARM and x86 are standardised by ISO either.

signa11 1y ago
they are de-facto…
eru 1y ago
Yes, but if 30 years ago ARM had an ISO standard they could point to, that would have probably helped with government adoption? (It's still a trade-off, because standards also cost community time and effort.)
- userbinator 1y ago
  Relatedly, 30 years ago someone attempted to turn the Windows 3.1 API into an ISO standard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Programming_Interface_for_Windows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Application_Programming_Interf... It didn't become one, but it did become standardised as ECMA-234: https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-234/ https://ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/st...
  - eru 1y ago
    Well, Wine shows that Win32 is the only stable ABI, even on Linux.
    - GoblinSlayer 1y ago
      >On May 5, 1993, Sun Microsystems announced Windows Application Binary Interface (WABI), a product to run Windows software on Unix, and the Public Windows Interface (PWI) initiative, an effort to standardize a subset of the popular 16-bit Windows APIs. >In February 1994, the PWI Specification Committee sent a draft specification to X/Open—who rejected it in March, after being threatened by Microsoft's assertion of intellectual property rights (IPR) over the Windows APIs Looks like that's what it was.
miki123211 1y ago
Governments seem to care about "self-sufficiency" a lot more these days, especially after what's happening in both China and the US right now. If the choice is between an architecture owned, patented and managed by a single company domiciled in a foreign country, versus one which is an international standard and has multiple competing vendors, the latter suddenly seems a lot more attractive. Price and performance don't matter that much. Governments are a lot less price-sensitive than consumers (and even businesses), they're willing to spend money to achieve their goals.
aDyslecticCrow 1y ago
Yes, and they're both massively debated and criticised, to the point that the industry developed Risk-V in the firstplace. Not to mention the rugpull licensing ARM pulled a few years back.
lambdaone 1y ago
This is exactly what makes this such an interesting development. Standardization is part of the process of the CPU industry becoming a mature industry not dependent on the whims of individual companies. Boring, yes, but also stable.

chithanh 1y ago

Sometimes it helps, sometimes it doesn't. Like when Sun Microsystems submitted ODF for standardization to ISO, it was so successful that Microsoft had to do it too for OOXML. In fact MS pushed so hard that it left a huge trail of destruction in the standards committees. Other times, like with the "ISO power plug", the result was ISO/IEC 60906-1 which nobody uses. Swiss plugs (IEC Type J), which this plug is based on, use a slightly different distance for the ground pin, so it is incompatible. Brazil adopted it (IEC Type N) but made changes to pin diameter and current rating.