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Libre RISC-V Open-Source Effort Now Looking At POWER Instead Of RISC-V

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  • Libre RISC-V Open-Source Effort Now Looking At POWER Instead Of RISC-V

    Phoronix: Libre RISC-V Open-Source Effort Now Looking At POWER Instead Of RISC-V

    Well, here is a surprise... The Libre RISC-V project that is trying to build an "open-source GPU" more along the lines as a Vulkan accelerator is looking at other options besides RISC-V. While RISC-V is royalty-free and open-source in nature, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton is not content with the RISC-V Foundation and is evaluating the likes of POWER and MIPS...

    Phoronix, Linux Hardware Reviews, Linux hardware benchmarks, Linux server benchmarks, Linux benchmarking, Desktop Linux, Linux performance, Open Source graphics, Linux How To, Ubuntu benchmarks, Ubuntu hardware, Phoronix Test Suite

  • #2
    Libre POWER...

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    • #3
      Seems pretty obvious to me... Fork RISC-V ala OpenOffice... since nobody can get on the foundations mailing list nobody will be using it anyway especially if the fork's ML is more active and useful.

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      • #4
        As much as there is hype around RISC-V, I hope POWER gets some traction with their efforts, too. And if it suits their needs, why not?!

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        • #5
          That's why lately it got quieter on the RISC-V mailing lists, especially on the ISA-Dev mailing list. Lets see how the discussion will be there in the future.

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          • #6
            He doesn't appear to have any criticism of the architecture itself but rather how the organization stewarding it is treating the effort / community collaborations not ranking high compared to their commercial/business members.
            Take as old as time. It's all about the money.

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            • #7
              Originally posted by ms178 View Post
              As much as there is hype around RISC-V, I hope POWER gets some traction with their efforts, too. And if it suits their needs, why not?!
              there are already a powerpc laptop in the works..

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              • #8
                Erm... ok but let's face it, building a GPU based off either the Power or RISC-V ISA isn't a real product. It's a fun idea, but GPUs are mostly thousands of ALUs being controlled by groups of fairly restricted instruction decoders. Otherwise GPUs and CPUs wouldn't exist as separate things by now.

                The only Open part of RISC-V is the ISA, and that's the set of documents you can download from the website (heck - you can download ARM and Intel's they just have a different copyright). You can also download the "Rocket" Verilog code (or one of the other ones), but I'm not sure what magic secret sauce they believe exists outside that.

                Maybe they should just join the consortium and be working on something that isn't fundamentally screwball, and people will listen to them...

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                • #9
                  So now the "Libre RISC-V" name is taken and it might not even end up using RISC-V.

                  The lesson here is when you name your project after a critical component you better be sure you can actually use that component. Since producing an open source GPU seems to still be the main focus the name isn't (and probably wasn't) appropriate for the task.

                  The only good solution I see is to turn over the name to some new leadership with the explicit goal of opening up RISC-V to the public again, then pick a new (ISA neutral) name for the GPU project.

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                  • #10
                    "We cannot even get access to documentation explaining how to propose newextensions."

                    Can't you literally just write an extension document like the other ones (which have open TeX source), then propose it? Far as I can tell this isn't like the Bluetooth SIG, you don't need to use their super secret MS Word template to get started.

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