5 ms·

The concept of 'open source hardware' is very interesting to me, however, it looks so different to software in many ways (e.g.: much harder to understand, many

by brachi 11y ago

The concept of 'open source hardware' is very interesting to me, however, it looks so different to software in many ways (e.g.: much harder to understand, many external dependencies to build it yourself), but maybe is just my perception due to zero knowledge of so many things.

GauntletWizard 11y ago
Software looks, to the layman, as very hard to understand. The infrastructure concerns of external dependencies are hard; I spent a full day configuring a build server the other day. We persevere despite these things. I doubt that the open source hardware community will ever be even a tenth the size of the software community, but if it can be large enough it can have amazing knock-on effects. Look at the outsized effect even simple things like the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone have. They're reference boards slapped together out of commodity parts, but represent a very real gateway to software and hardware hacking to many people.
ChuckMcM 11y ago
I think it is just as "simple" as software, except that it is very different. Also hardware has typically been the realm of patents and software the realm of copyright when it came to protecting IP. So you can always re-implement your take on a software idea if it is only copyrighted but you can't make work alike hardware if it is patented. Fortunately a lot of hardware patents are expiring which makes the amount of useful hardware you can implement that much more useful. Over the next 5 years a huge number of microprocessor patents are due to expire into the public domain so I am looking forward to a lot of inexpensive hardware coming out of places like TSMC and China.
- nickpsecurity 11y ago
  Not as simple at all. I can teach people how to write software pretty quick. Those same people might take years to learn to make working hardware. Without extensive tool support, it can take them a lot longer as process nodes they work on get smaller. And you don't know if it works until you shell out big money for an ASIC prototype and probably do several iterations of that. The fact that you have to spend more money to test the design is the biggest difference. Eliminate all the rest with brilliant, well studied people and you still have that huge cost on a decent process node. Services such as MOSIS help but only so much. Open-source, gate-level testing and general verification tools would be a great investment in that they reduce this significantly. Well, a full suite of open source (or cheap) EDA tools in general would be nice but that's a whole different, pessimistic discussion. :(
  - minthd 11y ago
    >> Well, a full suite of open source (or cheap) EDA tools in general would be nice but that's a whole different, pessimistic discussion. :( Actually for the leading edge - the cost of EDA tools is among the largest bottlenecks ,possibly even stopping moore's law - through greatly reducing design starts and breaking the economics of the law.
    - nickpsecurity 11y ago
      That's one point in the pessimistic discussion. Worse that most of the tools hit NP-hard problems whose solutions leverage a combination of public knowledge, esoteric wisdom (often trade secret), and many PhD's worth of algorithms. It's going to be... really hard... to duplicate them plus their results in proprietary or FOSS. Personally, I'd just suggest Bill Gates or another fat cat buy Mentor (cheapest) then dual-license their stuff and offer discounts for early years to startups. Or discount + royalty strategy. Results might get very interesting in terms of innovation.
      - minthd 11y ago
        Personally i wouldn't interrupt Bill Gates. He's doing amazing stuff. But it could really appeal to other philanthropists who seek recognition and impact. Another idea i had in that area - why won't great scientists collaboratively start an open DARPA - creating propositions for truly breakthrough science/engineering projects - and letting philanthropists buy and make them happen ? Assuming philanthropists get at least one success from a few trials - it's guaranteed impact - on a very large scale.
        nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Thing is, what individual or small group of them could I convince to spend almost $2 billion? Bill Gates has plenty more than that and would understand the value of the purchase. He's also trying to give away most of his fortune. Weren't any other names that popped into my mind. Suggestions?
  - 11y ago
rwmj 11y ago
I think you're right in that there needs to be an easy way in. I have some FPGA hardware, I was an FPGA hardware engineer in the dim and distant past, and tried to follow a tutorial, but still didn't get very far trying to make a RISC-V machine. I did however manage to install a simple RISC-V virtual machine (on x86-64) [1]. But yes, it needs to be much easier. [1] https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/booting-risc-v-linux-with-qemu/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/booting-risc-v-linux-w...

by brachi 11y ago

GauntletWizard 11y ago

Software looks, to the layman, as very hard to understand. The infrastructure concerns of external dependencies are hard; I spent a full day configuring a build server the other day. We persevere despite these things. I doubt that the open source hardware community will ever be even a tenth the size of the software community, but if it can be large enough it can have amazing knock-on effects. Look at the outsized effect even simple things like the Raspberry Pi and Beaglebone have. They're reference boards slapped together out of commodity parts, but represent a very real gateway to software and hardware hacking to many people.

ChuckMcM 11y ago

I think it is just as "simple" as software, except that it is very different. Also hardware has typically been the realm of patents and software the realm of copyright when it came to protecting IP. So you can always re-implement your take on a software idea if it is only copyrighted but you can't make work alike hardware if it is patented. Fortunately a lot of hardware patents are expiring which makes the amount of useful hardware you can implement that much more useful. Over the next 5 years a huge number of microprocessor patents are due to expire into the public domain so I am looking forward to a lot of inexpensive hardware coming out of places like TSMC and China.

nickpsecurity 11y ago
Not as simple at all. I can teach people how to write software pretty quick. Those same people might take years to learn to make working hardware. Without extensive tool support, it can take them a lot longer as process nodes they work on get smaller. And you don't know if it works until you shell out big money for an ASIC prototype and probably do several iterations of that. The fact that you have to spend more money to test the design is the biggest difference. Eliminate all the rest with brilliant, well studied people and you still have that huge cost on a decent process node. Services such as MOSIS help but only so much. Open-source, gate-level testing and general verification tools would be a great investment in that they reduce this significantly. Well, a full suite of open source (or cheap) EDA tools in general would be nice but that's a whole different, pessimistic discussion. :(
- minthd 11y ago
  >> Well, a full suite of open source (or cheap) EDA tools in general would be nice but that's a whole different, pessimistic discussion. :( Actually for the leading edge - the cost of EDA tools is among the largest bottlenecks ,possibly even stopping moore's law - through greatly reducing design starts and breaking the economics of the law.
  - nickpsecurity 11y ago
    That's one point in the pessimistic discussion. Worse that most of the tools hit NP-hard problems whose solutions leverage a combination of public knowledge, esoteric wisdom (often trade secret), and many PhD's worth of algorithms. It's going to be... really hard... to duplicate them plus their results in proprietary or FOSS. Personally, I'd just suggest Bill Gates or another fat cat buy Mentor (cheapest) then dual-license their stuff and offer discounts for early years to startups. Or discount + royalty strategy. Results might get very interesting in terms of innovation.
    - minthd 11y ago
      Personally i wouldn't interrupt Bill Gates. He's doing amazing stuff. But it could really appeal to other philanthropists who seek recognition and impact. Another idea i had in that area - why won't great scientists collaboratively start an open DARPA - creating propositions for truly breakthrough science/engineering projects - and letting philanthropists buy and make them happen ? Assuming philanthropists get at least one success from a few trials - it's guaranteed impact - on a very large scale.
      - nickpsecurity 11y ago
        Thing is, what individual or small group of them could I convince to spend almost $2 billion? Bill Gates has plenty more than that and would understand the value of the purchase. He's also trying to give away most of his fortune. Weren't any other names that popped into my mind. Suggestions?
- 11y ago

rwmj 11y ago

I think you're right in that there needs to be an easy way in. I have some FPGA hardware, I was an FPGA hardware engineer in the dim and distant past, and tried to follow a tutorial, but still didn't get very far trying to make a RISC-V machine. I did however manage to install a simple RISC-V virtual machine (on x86-64) [1]. But yes, it needs to be much easier. [1] https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/booting-risc-v-linux-with-qemu/ https://rwmj.wordpress.com/2015/06/11/booting-risc-v-linux-w...