Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:16PM   Printer-friendly
from the open-to-the-possibility dept.

Is it time For open processors? Jonathan Corbet over at lwn.net seems to think so. He lists several ongoing initiatives such as OpenPOWER, OpenSPARC and OpenRISC, but feels that most of the momentum is in the RISC-V architecture right now.

Given the complexity of modern CPUs and the fierceness of the market in which they are sold, it might be surprising to think that they could be developed in an open manner. But there are serious initiatives working in this area; the idea of an open CPU design is not pure fantasy.

[...] Much of the momentum these days, instead, appears to be associated with the RISC-V architecture. This project is primarily focused on the instruction-set architecture (ISA), rather than on specific implementations, but free hardware designs do exist. Western Digital recently announced that it will be using RISC-V processors in its storage products, a decision that could lead to the shipment of RISC-V by the billion. There is a development kit available for those who would like to play with this processor and a number of designs for cores are available.

Unlike OpenRISC, RISC-V is intended to be applicable to a wide range of use cases. The simple RISC architecture should be relatively easy to make fast, it is hoped. Meanwhile, for low-end applications, there is a compressed instruction-stream format intended to reduce both memory and energy needs. The ISA is designed with the ability for specific implementations to add extensions, making experimentation easier and facilitating the addition of hardware acceleration techniques.

[...] RISC-V seems to have quite a bit of commercial support behind it — the RISC-V Foundation has a long list of members. It seems likely that this architecture will continue to progress for some time.


Original Submission

This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:27PM (37 children)

    by Snotnose (1623) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:27PM (#626806)

    Sigh. Hardware isn't like software. I've worked for 2 companies that designed chips. For the first (start up) doing a spin was $150,000. For the second established company that sells millions of chips/year) it was a $1,000k. That's not counting the software required to test the hardware.

    Any bored Finn with a PC can write an OS in his mom's basement during winter, all it takes is the PC. Any bored Open Source dude can use VHDL or somesuch to design, test, and simulate a CPU. The problem when it comes to actually making some chips to test, that costs $$$.

    --
    Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:33PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:33PM (#626812)

      Nice FUD, Krzanich. You're going down.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:34PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:34PM (#626814)

        Shit up, Linus

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:42PM (29 children)

      by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:42PM (#626822) Journal

      The problem when it comes to actually making some chips to test, that costs $$$.

      That's just the first problem. The second problem comes in the form of "will the new CPU+OS combo run all my applications?"

      And when the answer is "no", the project is again dead in the water, no matter what other merits it might have.

      It could be the best OS; the best processor; the prettiest, the easiest, the one without even a trace of Jony Ive's shit-for-brains interior-decorator-tantrum-inspired flat icons, and it'll still fall on its face with a resounding splat. Because Larry and Jane and androgynous Bob's apps won't run.

      It all comes down to compatibility. Projects that don't provide compatibility — at any level — are shooting themselves in the foot right out of the door. So these open processors... probably not going to make any headway. People are too invested at this point in time. IMHO.

      Hell, you couldn't even get me to move to Windows, and it uses the same processor I'm using now. But it won't run my apps; end of discussion.

      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:54PM (1 child)

        by looorg (578) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:54PM (#626835)

        This is in essence what it comes down to. While it run Windows? If not will it run something that I can run all the standard application on? Will I have to replace all my other hardware to fit in with this? What companies are going to support this? I guess the best thing that could happen would be if some Industry giant just decided they had enough of the Intel shitshow and decided to do their own thing -- looking at Google (time to not be evil again ...) or one of the console companies or something else. You probably need to pull it all in .. desktop users, gamers etc otherwise this probably won't take off. While a Finn working in his student dorm (or whatever) for a few decades might be a great approach I just don't think this will ever take off then. But perhaps this is what it will take to bring about the Year of the Linux desktop ...

        • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:42AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:42AM (#626972)

          This is in essence what it comes down to. While it run Windows? If not will it run something that I can run all the standard application on? Will I have to replace all my other hardware to fit in with this?

          Those who've suckled exclusively at the Microsoft teet may tremble at the prospect of having to change hardware and software, but it's nothing new elsewhere. Apple has broken ties with the past repeatedly, forcing customers to buy new hardware and software. USB-A? Gone. FireWire? Gone. Optical storage? Gone. Floppy drives? Serial ports? ADB? All gone. SCSI? Gone. PowerPC? Gone. 68000-series? Gone.

          It's painful to change, but if it's done for the right reasons it can be a good thing. Giving up exclusive reliance on Windows is a good reason.

      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:00PM (10 children)

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:00PM (#626840) Journal

        The first level of compatibility is to provide compilers for your new chip.

        Then there is the fact that an OS kernel must be ported -- you can't just magically compile it even having a compiler for your chip.

        Once you have the kernel, if user space software can be simply recompiled and run on your new processor -- then you've really got something!

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:13PM (9 children)

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:13PM (#626845) Journal

          then you've really got something!

          Well, what you have are compilers.

          You still haven't solved the problem of all the apps I have that are no longer being supported, devs and/or companies long gone, etc.

          Remember when Apple went from PPC to Intel? They built a wholly transparent PPC emulation right into the OS, and thereby leveraged the current users from Processor A to Processor B, because all those PPC apps "just worked."

          Of course, then they roundly butt-screwed all those app users a few years later sans lube or reach-around by dropping the emulation, but they got away with it because it was otherwise too late — people had already moved. It was slimy as hell of them to do, but it worked.

          In any case, compilers don't solve the past-compatability problem. They enable future app generation. Which will have a great deal of trouble taking off, because no one will move until that phase is well under way, unless they can just jump right in with their current app and document collection.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:32PM (4 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:32PM (#626851)

            The alternative is to wait until the hammer comes down on "hacker tools." Probably one will be able to install RHEL and Ubuntu, but forget being able to compile one's own kernel. Forget about even having access to a full compiler without paying some hefty fees to the likes of Red Hat or Microsoft. Sure, hello world will probably still compile with the "community edition" of Visual C++ or Clang.

            All this out of misogynerd narrative and OMG Russia. I think the other pieces don't directly affect this part, but I wouldn't be surprised if OMG trolls or OMG dank alt-right memes plays some part. It's the only way they can make sure that throwing away net neutrality gives ISPs a stranglehold on information, only allowing access to approved propaganda outlets. Well, there will probably still be the option of coughing up big bucks to be able to connect to unapproved subnets.

            But who the hell has big bucks other than Inner Party members? I hear they can even switch off their telescreens!

            But OTOH given the funding concerns stated upthread for open hardware, maybe that's checkmate. A boot stamping on a human face forever.

            • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:49PM (3 children)

              by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:49PM (#626858) Journal

              The alternative is [optimism redacted]

              I read what you wrote, yet I see no alternative.

              Either my apps work, or you have nothing at all to offer me.

              Look, I'm a developer. I have Windows, linux and OS X machines running here, and I have to keep them all running for various reasons. But I only use one OS for 99% of what I do. Because apps. I'm completely serious: you have nothing to offer me with an alternative / incompatible OS, and that's without even bringing a new processor into the mix.

              Grandma will be even more unwilling to consider abandoning the things she knows how to use, as will office slaves Obadiah, Myrtle, and... Bob... who have all their working hours into their custom vertical applications. Then there are the gamers. Your New Hotness won't run their copy of Star Sluts XIII at 240 FPS across four monitors? Piss off, busy wearing out my... joystick... over here.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @12:46AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @12:46AM (#626886)

                I definitely hear what you're saying.

                It's depressing.

              • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:19AM

                by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:19AM (#626896) Journal

                The alternative is [optimism redacted]

                I read what you wrote, yet I see no alternative. Either my apps work, or you have nothing at all to offer me... I have Windows, linux and OS X machines running here, and I have to keep them all running for various reasons. But I only use one OS for 99% of what I do. Because apps.

                I can guess from this that you would be likely to choose "only Windows" if you could have only one of these operating systems. Because, you know, apps.

                But that's a thing in the culture and the habits and the institutions of the greater Windows environment, which is by far the dominant one.

                There are people--fewer in number--who would choose a unixlike OS, and a free one at that, if given the same only-one-OS choice.

                And those people have habits and a culture and institutions that mean that for them, a new architecture, a new processor, means *shrug* port and recompile everything, because the source is available for pretty much anything they would want to run. For those difficult-to-port apps, a slightly more inconvenient process of forming a porting team and solving the problems (or waiting for those who do that, to do that).

                The nice thing is that those open-unixy-compile-things people are the initial pilgrims on the shores of new architectures, and are the ones that will build infrastructure for the larger "I need my apps to just work" crowd.

                I'm completely serious: you have nothing to offer me with an alternative / incompatible OS, and that's without even bringing a new processor into the mix.

                It will take a long, long time for mainstream culture to come around to preferring free software, which confers the benefits I've mentioned and others. Fortunately that's not the culture it needs to catch on with first.

                Grandma will be even more unwilling

                She, if she's an average unsophisticated user, will run what you give her, and settle into whichever culture you place her. She isn't in that pilgrim vanguard, no, but then neither are you, and you're a developer!

                I am not a developer unless you charitably count complex scripts and websites, but I do have several ARM boards doing real work and I'd welcome the chance to start recompiling things on a free and open processor.

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:32PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:32PM (#627318)

                mass consumer adoption is not a requirement for this to be a worthwhile initiative. most people don't use gnu/linux either. yet i somehow use it every day. if we could get open hardware to where people had the option, that would be good enough for me.

          • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:51PM (1 child)

            by Arik (4543) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:51PM (#626860) Journal
            And that's exactly why you should never allow yourself to become dependent on blobs.

            (Those programs aren't really software since you don't have usable source.)
            --
            If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:33PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:33PM (#627176)

              I remember when Oracle became available on linux. A reporter found the guy who did the work and asked him if he had any problems with porting the software to that OS. He said: "What port? All I did was run make."

          • (Score: 2) by TheRaven on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:25AM

            by TheRaven (270) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @10:25AM (#627073) Journal

            Remember when Apple went from PPC to Intel? They built a wholly transparent PPC emulation right into the OS, and thereby leveraged the current users from Processor A to Processor B, because all those PPC apps "just worked."

            This depends a lot on the ecosystem. Most Mac apps are proprietary and may depend on libraries that are not source-available, licensed from third parties. Getting everyone to recompile their code was a pain.

            A lot of Windows apps, in contrast, are shipped as .NET bytecodes, so you can change architecture by porting the CLR JIT. Unfortunately, a lot of the popular ones are still shipped as x86 binaries, so you'd need an emulator.

            Most Android apps are distributed as Dalvik bytecode, though a lot include native libraries. The libraries communicate with the rest of the system via a fairly well-defined interface (including talking to system libraries), so it's possible to emulate only this code and run the rest natively.

            Most *NIX apps are distributed as source code that's been tested on at least a couple of architectures, so once you have the relevant toolchain working you just need to port them. Once we have a working toolchain for AArch64, for example, it was pretty easy for us to get about 90% of the packages that are available for FreeBSD/x86-64 for FreeBSD/AArch64.

            Most iOS apps are now provided to Apple as LLVM IR and distributed via the app store. It would be entirely feasible for them to add a new LLVM back end and ship almost all existing apps for it.

            --
            sudo mod me up
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by DannyB on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:18PM

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:18PM (#627136) Journal

            then you've really got something!

            Well, what you have are compilers.

            What you have at that point is something like Raspberry Pi. It's a different chip. In order to get it to work someone had to build compiler back ends that target that chip. Then the kernel had to be ported to that chip. But there are tens of thousands of packages now available for Linux on Pi. The only way that even seems plausible is that it took something between zero and very little effort to port each package to the new chip -- and I suspect in most cases, simply a recompile. The apps, in general, don't address hardware. They use the C library (and others) and possibly kernel calls, which are presumably portable across architectures. I strongly suspect most of the kernel calls are only performed through standard libraries.

            The beauty of that is that once you port a compiler and then the kernel using that compiler, you get the gigantic ecosystem for very little additional cost. (Please correct if this is an untrue characterization of the situation. I would be interested to know.)

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:03PM (3 children)

        by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:03PM (#626842)

        You just need to make your OS compatible with the Android App store. All the apps get recompiled at install time, so it doesn't matter if you're using a weird Arch.

        > Larry and Jane and androgynous Bob's apps

        I see what you did there.

        • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:19PM

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:19PM (#626847) Journal

          I see what you did there.

          -2 real-world karma for paying attention. Have you no shame?

        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:07PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:07PM (#627156) Journal

          I could use the same argument to say just write all your apps in any of the languages that compile to the JVM. (Java Virtual Machine) You don't have to use Java source code or compiler, there are other language compilers that generate JVM bytecode.

          Then your JVM bytecode is compiled on the fly (and soon now ahead of time) into native code.

          The JVM runtime is industrial strength. It dynamically profiles all code and compiles the hottest code to native code using two compilers. First with C1 which quickly generates non optimized native code. Then your function is scheduled to soon be compiled by C2 which spends more time compiling your function to highly optimized native code. The C2 compiler aggressively inlines.

          Here is an example of the sophistication. Suppose Your function F1 calls My function F2. When C2 compiles F1, it may inline code from F2. Now suppose my function F2 gets dynamically re-loaded with a newer version -- function F1 now contains stale inlined code and is instantly switched back to slower bytecode interpretation and native code for F1 is discarded. If F1 is a hot function still, then very soon it will get recompiled by C1, and then shortly by C2.

          One disadvantage of the JVM is that it has a slow start up time. That is because everything is optimized for long, long runtimes. Because of the C1/C2 process I described, programs seem to "warm up" and then become very fast. So while your other GC language (eg, Python, others etc) may start up quickly, then aren't the kind of industrial strength runtime as JVM.

          The JVM can have dozens of gigabytes of memory with pause times in the milliseconds. JVM offers a choice of garbage collector algorithms. Each GC is tunable with plenty of knobs. One commercial JVM provider (Azul systems product Zing) touts hundreds of gigabytes of memory with 10 ms GC pause times. Several research efforts, including one by Red Hat are working towards a new GC that can support Terabytes of memory with GC pause times in the low milliseconds.

          The JVM supports source level debugging.

          If you can live with the warts of the JVM, and there are some, it is an excellent runtime platform.

          (Another wart currently being addressed with modularity is that the JVM runtime is a hundred megabytes of disk footprint for a hello world program. Typical programs that run on JVM are large programs themselves.)

          Coming soon: compilers as part of OpenJDK that generate AOT (ahead of time) native code.

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
        • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:08PM

          by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:08PM (#627157) Journal

          You just need to make your OS compatible with the Android App store.

          I think the newest Chrome OS is compatible with the Play store. :-)

          --
          People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Snotnose on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:48PM (11 children)

        by Snotnose (1623) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:48PM (#626857)

        The second problem comes in the form of "will the new CPU+OS combo run all my applications?"

        Disagree. The kind of folks who will buy/use an open source CPU are the kind of folks who run Linux, and it's not all that hard to port Linux to a new CPU. I know, I got Linux running on an SH-4 back in '00 or '01.

        All it takes is a couple people to get it all running, make it an official supported hardware, and you're 99% of the way to a completely working Linux system.

        --
        Why shouldn't we judge a book by it's cover? It's got the author, title, and a summary of what the book's about.
        • (Score: 4, Informative) by fyngyrz on Wednesday January 24 2018, @12:20AM (10 children)

          by fyngyrz (6567) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @12:20AM (#626873) Journal

          The kind of folks who will buy/use an open source CPU are the kind of folks who run Linux

          So, basically people who run servers and a relative few outliers. Desktop shares: [statista.com]

          • Windows: ~84.5%
          • OS X: ~11.3%
          • Linux: ~1.8%

          Those numbers are slightly rounded, see referenced page for specifics.

          You see how Windows dominates? That's all about apps.

          Windows will RunYour(Windows)Shit™, almost no matter when you put your shit on your system. I can run all the Windows95 apps I own (that were built 22 years ago) on the latest WindowsHotness™ and they can still crank right along just fine with a few OS nudges here and there.

          OSX keeps breaking its ability to RunYour(OSX)Shit™, and plus, won't RunYour(Windows)Shit without a VM (although interestingly enough, it will somewhat RunYour(Linux)Shit™.) Bang... market share is comparatively tiny. Even though OSX has Easy™ pretty much down.

          Linux won't RunYour(Windows|OSX)Shit™ either, and it's generally understood to be HardToUse™, as in, not Easy™, so the Year of the Linux Desktop never happens, desktop market share remains comparatively tiny, only worse, because linux is (perhaps unfairly these days) perceived as not Easy™, so people who ThinkDifferent but want Easy™ tend to go for OSX, not Linux.

          It's all very well to rhapsodize about the TechnicalMerits™ of YourFavoriteOS™ but really, most people don't give a Shit™. They want:

          • RunsMyShit™
          • Easy™

            You can't meet those targets, you don't have much. Sad, perhaps even depressing, but true.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:09AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:09AM (#626893)

            Not that it matters, but at my kids' elementary school and high school they have iPads and Windows laptops and classes on Microsoft Office.

            Is it any wonder Microsoft and Apple continue to own most of computing? Android sucks in terms of openness, but it's a miracle it was able to establish a foothold.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:42PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:42PM (#627326)

              Not that it matters, but at my kids' elementary school and high school they have iPads and Windows laptops and classes on Microsoft Office.

              That's an abomination. Surely at least some parents made their voices heard by saying they didn't want schools pushing non-free proprietary user-subjugating software on their children. Surely at least some people stood up to defend education, freedom, and independence.

              I would immediately pull my kid out of such a school. I'd rather homeschool or unschool than subject them to that kind of abuse, as well as all the other forms of abuse that our school system inflicts upon children (like not providing them with any actual education beyond the absolute basics). But surely there is no way for kids to get any socialization outside of the prison-like environment that is school, or at least that's what I occasionally hear.

              Besides that, I question the value of having computers everywhere in the first place, whether they respect users' freedoms or not. If your entire idea of schooling is about rote memorization and one-size-fits-all tactics, then giving everyone computers isn't going to help one bit. Even the top schools are junk; they just appear better in comparison, which tempts people to make the 'not as bad as' fallacy.

          • (Score: 2) by Pino P on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:32AM (1 child)

            by Pino P (4721) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @02:32AM (#626922) Journal

            Both GNU/Linux (on x86 or x86-64) will run some of your Windows shit using Wine, which is lighter weight than a full VM. But neither Windows nor Linux will run your macOS shit, particularly Xcode for porting your Android shit to the only western mobile operating system whose users actually buy shit.

            • (Score: 2) by tekk on Wednesday January 24 2018, @06:30AM

              by tekk (5704) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @06:30AM (#627010)

              Actually there's a project that's basically Wine-For-OSX called Darling. Sadly it's no emulating Quartz (graphical stuff) yet, but it's apparently able to run most command line tools.

          • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:15PM (2 children)

            by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:15PM (#627161) Journal

            So, basically people who run servers and a relative few outliers. Desktop shares:

                    Windows: ~84.5%
                    OS X: ~11.3%
                    Linux: ~1.8%

            I don't think Desktop shares tell the whole story.

            First of all, servers are BIG business. The number of servers running Linux might already rival desktop cpus at this point.

            But consider all of the other types of things that run Linux. Smart TVs. TiVo's. RoKu's. Amazon Fire Sticks. Echos. Google Home. And 2+ BILLION smart phones. GPS navigator devices. Printers (and just about anything else) that has a Web configuration interface. Large routers. Home routers. Wristwatches. Mainframes. And more.

            IMO it is highly likely that Windows Boxes are way outnumbered by processors of any stripe running Linux.

            So which OS is more important? And what kind of market could new chips find even if only the Linux OS runs on them? Ask ARM. I wonder if there might already be more ARM chips in use than Intel chips. I don't know. But I seriously wonder.

            --
            People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
            • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:33AM (1 child)

              by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:33AM (#627506) Journal

              I don't think Desktop shares tell the whole story.

              They do for consumer acceptance. That's why you're not going to get these into the consumer space unless they're so fabulous they can emulate the old stuff at equivalent speed.

              The usual run of desktop computer consumers — and there are a huge number of them — by and large, don't care about servers, processors in their TVs or phones, or Raspberry pis. They care about Office, Photoshop, Autocad, Excel, games, and so on. Either you run that stuff like it was your best friend, or you're dead in the water for the desktop and the likes of Intel and AMD will keep on keeping on owning that space.

              The vertical markets you're talking about exist apart from any issues with getting an open CPU to actually replace the current crop of closed CPUs.

              • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday January 25 2018, @02:33PM

                by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday January 25 2018, @02:33PM (#627688) Journal

                I don't think Desktop shares tell the whole story.

                They do for consumer acceptance.

                If you read the list of things I mentioned (TiVo's, Smart TVs, Smartphones, etc), I would dare say that qualifies as the consumer space.

                The vertical markets you're talking about . . .

                I don't think of those as vertical markets. Consumer products that sell in the tens, or hundreds of millions let alone billions are not exactly what I would call vertical markets. By that definition I could say Windows 10 is a vertical market and we know that is not true.

                I consider vertical markets as something that is (1) highly specialized, AND (2) has a small but loyal market share. The consumer products I mentioned (Smart TVs) might fit #1 (and I don't think they do), but definitely don't fit #2. Vertical market would be specialized software for a lawyer's office, or doctors office, or your local library, or the place that changes your oil. A limited market and highly specialized.

                The usual run of desktop computer consumers — and there are a huge number of them — by and large, don't care about servers . . .

                I think you're talking more about fashion and popularity contest. I'm talking about making big money by selling (or licensing) billions and billions of chips running Linux. And boards with these chips. And support chips. And the programming that goes into these devices.

                A few years back, and I don't have a link handy, I saw a graph showing how the sheer numbers of Android (not including iPhone!) devices would exceed the number of Windows PCs and Laptops in a few years (which is now past).

                While I understand the attachment to the way things were with Microsoft's monopoly PCs and concern about squeezing every last drop of performance, I think the world has changed and is changing. Windows PCs just don't have the importance they once had. You mention consumer acceptance, most consumers can do everything they need to do daily with nothing more than a web browser, eg, a Chromebook. Not all. But a surprisingly large number. Not everyone needs photoshop. Or they can use some web based dumbed down app. And the state of things today is not the end state. Amazing things are being done within the browser already that suggest that one possible future is that the "browser" might be the replacement for Windows in the future for all types of consumer apps -- even apps like Photoshop.

                With Microsoft no longer having quite the power and dominance it once had, we've seen a number of changes at Microsoft. It should be quite informative that Microsoft has embraced ARM processors for pragmatic reasons. That Microsoft has opened up .NET considerably more. That Microsoft has offered both SQL Server and SQL Server Management Studio on Linux, what is the world coming to! That Microsoft offers Office on other platforms such as Android and Chromebooks. (Never mind the technical implementation, but consider it from the 'perception' of consumers.) That Microsoft has Windows Subsystem for Linux, and openly admitted that the reason was 'to draw developers back to Microsoft'. That is quite telling. The reason I say all this is that is to reinforce that the importance of getting Microsoft Windows to run on a new chip simply may not be quite as important as you think it is. Important yes. But not the major factor.

                I think there is a very bright future for new chip architectures. Despite the tarpit of Microsoft Windows. I would point out ARM as a huge success story. There is very probably more ARM processors than Intel processors in every day use. And that gap will only widen as ARM processors move into data centers. It's not that new processor architectures will need to adapt to Windows. It's the other way around. Microsoft will be forced into adopting to the newer generations of hardware -- IN THE LONG RUN. Not overnight. But in the long run. And it already has happened with ARM. It was unthinkable ten years ago that Microsoft would offer an ARM version of Windows. But here we are.

                The Intel architecture is a dinosaur with 4+ decades of baggage. With all the variants, an immensely complex instruction set.

                --
                People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
          • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:07PM (2 children)

            by Freeman (732) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:07PM (#627196) Journal

            Try getting Civilization II to run on your new hotness and tell me how that goes. Please do share as that's the best Civ. of them all and I would really like it to run on my Win10 machine. Windows is highly compatible with older stuff, but they aren't 100% compatible. I would love it, if Microsoft would come out with officially supported means to run older programs on modern OS / Hardware. As it is we are left with hacks / workarounds by various people wanting to run X thing on the new hotness. Either that or things like DOSBox, FreeDOS, and ReactOS that try to create an environment to run your old Microsoft programs.

            --
            Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
            • (Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:34AM (1 child)

              by fyngyrz (6567) on Thursday January 25 2018, @01:34AM (#627507) Journal

              Have you tried a VM with the OS that Civ II wants running in it?

              • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday January 25 2018, @03:50PM

                by Freeman (732) on Thursday January 25 2018, @03:50PM (#627718) Journal

                I've tried it in the past with VirtualBox, but ran into some sort of issue. Also, it's not ideal to need to install another OS with virtual drive space to get the game working. I could probably go this route, but would be nice not have to deal with the issues with getting a VM up and going.

                --
                Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Wednesday January 24 2018, @12:53AM

      by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @12:53AM (#626889) Journal

      Is It Time For Open Processors?

      Yes, it is.

      Sigh. Hardware isn't like software.

      The two things being dissimilar does not have any bearing on the fact that there is a need for open processors.

    • (Score: 1) by pTamok on Wednesday January 24 2018, @09:32AM

      by pTamok (3042) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @09:32AM (#627061)

      Sigh. Hardware isn't like software.

      You are right. Cutting-edge hardware is not like cutting edge-software. However...

      Spinning up a current generation ASIC is expensive, as you rightly point out. Go back a few generations, though, and costs drop. Or use FPGAs, as many already do. There is a cpu upgrade board for Amiga computers [apollo-accelerators.com] that uses a 68000-architecture FPGA that has adequate performance - to run a very old Linux kernel, before too much code bloat happened. Going to an Open Hardware cpu will require setting ones sights considerably lower - you are not going to replace a multi-GHz cpu just yet, but you would have to start somewhere, and re-iterating the last 20-years of cpu development history would be faster the second time around, because most of the work has already been done.

      What stops this is lack of mainstream demand - as others have said - applications/apps. A small group of enthusiasts isn't going to get critical mass. Until there is a compelling event to use Open Hardware (and Meltdown&Spectre is not it), Open Hardware will remain peripheral to the mainstream proprietary approach. A lot of the enthusiasm for Open Hardware is untempered by reality.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:12PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:12PM (#627159)

      Open != Gratis

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:08PM (#627223)

      The folks who are likely to take this are low level device manufacturers who think that they can do stuff better/cheaper/lower risk if they are not reliant on one of the big chip manufacturers.

      I presume these outfits have something equivalent to a table of risks; and every dependency is a risk. So if I am dependent on ARM for my chips, then I have a risk that ARM - goes TITSUP; has some bug in their hardware; has some manufacturing issue (fire/strike/government intervention) in their manufacturing base that drives up costs. Indeed, a big manufacturer like WD can even develop an ecosystem and push their RISC-V investment as a product which they can sell to third parties.

      Going down the FOSS helps to develop such an ecosystem and share costs with other organisations in a similar position, so there is some benefit to not keeping everything in-house.

    • (Score: 1) by bobthecimmerian on Thursday January 25 2018, @04:41PM

      by bobthecimmerian (6834) on Thursday January 25 2018, @04:41PM (#627742)

      I agree with what you're saying, but I think it's important to keep in mind that the pace of hardware performance improvements has slowed dramatically in the past ten years.

      I have a desktop PC with a twelve year old dual core processor and 4GB of DDR2 RAM. When I had a cheap SSD in it, the performance was excellent. One of the two desktops I use most often has an AMD multicore processor from 2010, and AMD wasn't especially competitive with Intel at the time. So some team assembling a RISC-V or similar product for home users doesn't need to match a Broadwell Core i5 or Snapdragon 620 to make their effort useful. They don't even have to match a Core 2 Quad or a Snapdragon 400. I'm not saying this kind of thing will be easy to manage, just that the requirements for a viable product people genuinely will buy are substantially behind the state-of-the-art.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:32PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:32PM (#626810)

    money and other issues aside... yesterday was too late, that's all i have to say.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:44PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:44PM (#626825)

      But yesterday all my troubles seemed so far away.

      • (Score: 2) by looorg on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:50PM

        by looorg (578) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:50PM (#626831)

        Don't try to Yoko this project to ...

      • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:17PM

        by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @03:17PM (#627162) Journal

        For a reasonable price your troubles can be relocated closer to you with higher bandwidth and lower latency in how they affect your life.

        --
        People today are educated enough to repeat what they are taught but not to question what they are taught.
  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:42PM (2 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:42PM (#626819) Homepage Journal

    -?

    I don't have much of a clue about Electrical Engineering.

    However I have worked on two different Electronic Design Automation tools. The first one I reverse-engineered Zeni 4's physical design file format, the other I wrote a prototype of a physical design tool that had some novel features that my employer - an Electrical Engineer - had thought up.

    --
    Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:50PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:50PM (#626859)

      Verilog or VHDL are pretty much like c. Try getting into FPGA.

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:54PM (11 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @10:54PM (#626836)

    Open standards benefit everybody who is not able to set the de facto standard.

    That's true when you're talking about hardware, software, or swimwear.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:23PM (2 children)

      by frojack (1554) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:23PM (#626849) Journal

      Well we have open Software.
      The Risk guys are al gaga about open processors.
      But then there is everything else in the computer, the bus, the bridge, the power, the various ports and the video standard.
      Anyone who wants to go the open hardware route has a huge mountain to climb.

      We've got the paint and we've got the engines, but nobody has a transmission, body, drive system, or even a steering wheel.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:35PM

        by aristarchus (2645) on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:35PM (#626852) Journal

        Oh, no! Froj! Not the car analogy!

      • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:12PM

        by Freeman (732) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:12PM (#627198) Journal

        The only way to get something started is by doing it. Sure, there may be a huge uphill battle, but open hardware could be worth the effort.

        --
        Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:40PM (7 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:40PM (#626855) Journal

      Open swimwear - there was a time I could be interested or at least intrigued.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:52PM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Tuesday January 23 2018, @11:52PM (#626862) Journal

        A time before you switched to Unix?

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:32AM (3 children)

        by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @01:32AM (#626899) Journal

        Surely you want the WindowsSwimwear: frequently stops...working?

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:45AM (1 child)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @04:45AM (#626974) Journal

          Swimming pants on fire? The last thing I want, fer sure.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:05AM

            by MostCynical (2589) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:05AM (#626982) Journal

            That is reserved for liar, liars.

            --
            "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 2) by gawdonblue on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:23PM

          by gawdonblue (412) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:23PM (#627316)

          BSOD - bather screen of death

      • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:04AM (1 child)

        by Thexalon (636) on Wednesday January 24 2018, @05:04AM (#626981)

        Basically, swimwear is standardized: Guys get either speedos or shorts, gals get either 1-piece or bikinis. There aren't that many variations, they're all pretty similar materials, and the result is that you can buy based on price and a color you like.

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday January 24 2018, @06:06AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 24 2018, @06:06AM (#627001) Journal

          Have you seen the Microsoft's swimwear? No?
          Available on Microsoft's Australian store [microsoft.com], exquisitely expensive, not everyone has it.

          (grin)

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:44PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 24 2018, @07:44PM (#627331)

    like the chariots of the gods, may the open source steeds thunder across the world while flaming arrows boil the scum from the proprietary hags riding the backs of sea dragons.

(1)