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Fedora Now Has Bootable RISC-V Disk Images Available
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Originally posted by tessio View Post
Who said anything about releasing a CPU for free?
It's not like we don't have gazillions of IP-block choices already. I could not care less about the ISA.
I'm not starved for choices to build my own IP-blocks.
And it's not like an ISA is a hard thing to invent. Especially an ISA that does not tread any new ground whatsoever.
Sure. Nvidia etc are going to be interested. But that's mostly because they hate paying ARM licensing fees.
The only thing we are lacking are free, high quality, fast CPU IP-blocks not encumbered by licenses.
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Originally posted by milkylainen View PostWhat would be the point of yet another ISA without an implementation worth a damn for free?
Originally posted by milkylainen View PostAnd it's not like an ISA is a hard thing to invent.
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Originally posted by timofonic View Post
I'll prefer RISC-Z, using qbits and memristors.
Is [https://riscv.org/wp-content/uploads...tory_V2.pdf]NV RISC-V[/url] a proprietary fork of RISC-V by Nvidia? I'm sure they orgasmically love proprietary stuff.
So RISC-V is like BSD software massively cannibalized by corporate projects like PlayStation4 (and extremely modified, of course), but for hardware. I see these companies are going to provide a great feedback once they deploy and massively customize this free "IP" on their proprietary hardware with proprietary firmwares
RISC-V sponsorship is full of BIG GUYS,
Companies leaching from open source RISC-V implementations is still much better than the Intel/Arm monopolies we have now. And in general, it's a another step towards more openness.
In any case, we should see some code/designs/etc... flow back the other way too. Either for good PR, or business reasons. Nvidia for example would have a fairly good reason to push general purpose RISC-V since it could hurt their main rivals Intel and AMD. Also all the companies that aren't in the business of selling CPUs/designs but could see an advantage to having their designs open. A company like Facebook could save heaps by desiging a datacenter capable CPU, optimised for their kind of workloads, without paying a massive IP markup, opensourcing that would allow them to benefit from 3rd party contributions from and get a decrease in costs of fabbing the chips due to many other companies buying chips, including competitors drive the price down.
The world isn't a zero sum game. If nothing else at least the companies aren't reinventing the wheel and might cooperate to some extent in a rising tide floats all boats way. Companies can produce modules like the ESP wifi modules with an open standard that can be used for DIY projects.
Originally posted by timofonic View PostAll I see here is resumed in a world: PROMISES.
Show me the real thing running in real hardware competing latest and best iterations of Power, ARM, MIPS, X64 and others. Will we able to see supercomputers using RISC-V? I doubt it, big guys are the ones moving the project to their own interests and that will be to make alternate platforms to FAIL or at least just limited success in certain nichos.
What about Sunway? It's inspired by DEC Alpha and used by Military Chinese. The SW26010 model seems quite promising and used in China TOP500 supercompiuter
What about POWER9?
Sunway? I'm sure the Chinese military will be happy to give away and promote free ISA/designs to help foreign entities like the USA. That sounds just like warm fuzzy China.
POWER9 the architecture might be open but it's basically in the control of IBM. And the supercomputers are using proprietary nVidia NV-Link and GPUs.
It's also not all about super computers anyway. An AVR/Pic/Atmega microcontroller alternative would be fairly great on it's own and shouldn't be too hard to design.
In any case, people need to actually fab the physical CPUs. Right now that isn't something accessible to many. Of course cheap Chinese chips are a possibility.
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