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Intel, RISC-V Rally Rival Groups
Intel and RISC-V backers announced rival alliances to nurture competing ecosystems around tomorrow's processors.
Intel initiated Compute Express Link (CXL), an open chip-to-chip interconnect that it expects to use on its processors starting in 2021 to link to accelerators and memories. Other members include Alibaba, Cisco, Dell EMC, Facebook, Google, HPE, Huawei, and Microsoft.
Separately, a handful of RISC-V proponents launched the CHIPS Alliance, a project of the Linux Foundation to develop a broad set of open-source IP blocks and tools for the instruction set architecture. Initial members include Esperanto, Google, SiFive, and Western Digital. CHIPS stands for Common Hardware for Interfaces, Processors, and Systems.
The CHIPS Alliance is, by far, the most ambitious of the two efforts and is just one of several open-hardware initiatives in the works at the Linux Foundation. CHIPS aims to create open-source blocks for a variety of embedded cores as well as multi-core SoCs capable of running Linux — and, ultimately, an open-source design flow to build and test them.
Also at SDxCentral.
Related: Compute Express Link Specification (CXL) Version 1.0 Launched
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @02:30PM (4 children)
It is interesting to see open source principles applied to hardware.
As in the early days of software the GPL was necessary to prevent *cough* Microsoft from stealing open source code, while hoarding their own closed source code. (There I said it and named their name.)
Now talk about Hardware and name the name Intel. Would open source IP for hardware need to have a viral property like the GPL in order to prevent a rich entrenched monopolist from benefiting from the open source IP?
Or is a non-viral license okay, along with the risk that proprietary chips can leverage open source IP?
How would a viral clause work? It probably cannot forbid separate chip packages from interconnecting via traces on a circuit board. But it probably could / should (in order to be viral) prevent a closed / open combination of chips in a single 'package'. Or combining open / closed blocks in a single fabricated chip.
Disclaimer: I'm a software guy. I don't do hardware. And it probably shows. I think hardware is a necessary evil. If I could do it with all software and no hardware, I would. The cloud is not a realization. It merely hides the fact that there is still actual hardware behind it, elsewhere.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday March 15 2019, @02:49PM (2 children)
Open Sores!
...
Open hardware can be valuable for all parties. A company/org can get their standard adopted, manufacturers don't pay license fees, end user gets a cheaper, standardized product.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @03:29PM
I heard that term used pejoratively back in the Y! SCOX days. (SCO vs IBM)
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @03:37PM
Open Software can also be valuable for all parties.
In the Java-centric world where I live, there are TONS and TONS literally an embarrassment of open source riches. All interoperable. Mostly licensed under the Apache 2 license rather than GPL.
Using a license like Apache 2 (but also others MIT, BSD, and a few others) effectively greases the wheels of being able to use this software in closed commercial applications. And commercial users can contribute back. I understand that benefit. Also how Apache Tomcat is the most widely used application server, even though there are other Java app servers, including commercial ones. And standard frameworks, with books, commercial training courses, etc. A whole ecosystem. Multiple ecosystems around multiple frameworks.
But in the early days Microsoft was a genuine threat. The words Free Software were used and the phrase Open Source had not yet been invented. The viral license really was a protection. I'm assuming that open source hardware and chips are still in that early stage of the game where the open source guys can't yet write their own ticket like the open source software people can do today. Open source software is now eating the world -- so much that Microsoft is scrambling to embrace open source. But I don't think hardware is at that point where, say, Intel is, effectively, forced to deal with and embrace open source instead of working to try to undermine and thwart it. But I would be happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @08:20PM
Looks like the TAPR and OHL both require reciprocity. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_hardware#Licenses [wikipedia.org]
"Viral" is probably not a very good term because the copyleft clauses are only triggered by somebody choosing to distribute derivatives.