RISC-V

[bcomputerguy]

This is a cool talk and I was thinking about something like this for a long time.

Towards the end of the talk, he explains how arm being bought by softbanc kinda ruffled some feathers in the industry. I've always wondered about things like that.

I'm old enough to remember voodoo graphics cards and they are pretty much no more. I can't understand why more open hardware isn't available? Everyone reinventing the a wheel that's broken in some strange way.

I think this is a good thing, there should be some open ISA in the gpu market as well. There's too many smart people out there to only have 2 major GPU and CPU providers, wtf is that about.

It's good to hear that FreeBSD mainlined RISC-V though. This is a good move in my opinion.

Thoughts about open architectures like these, where companies compete on products, services and value add and not some monopoly position just cuz.

 

[lasuit]

bcomputerguy, I completely agree. The Asanovic talk is a good one, and I believe that the best interests of consumers and producers is through an open ISA. But, just as people had to be more imaginative to make Open Source Software a viable business model, so too will the hardware world. Most new business ideas start out as proprietary until the limitations of scale start to bite. And of course, there are special interests that can do better financially by not opening up, but usually the greatest benefits can be achieved through open systems.