He’s being misquoted by the headline. He FEARS that it will make the same mistakes. Let’s be clear about RISC is here in the first place: an open-source hardware architecture. Anyone with enough money and willpower to fork it for their needs will do so. It’s anyone’s game still. He’s just simply saying that the same type of people who took over ARM and x86 are doomed to make the same mistakes. Not that RISC-V is bad.
I’m being pedantic here but RISC-V is not a hardware architecture as in something that you can send to a manufacturer and get it made. It is an ISA. How you implement those ISA is up to you. Yes there are open implementations but I think it is important to distinguish it.
isnt ARM the same?
So does x86. The difference is license. Just like how Intel and AMD have a VERY different design (implementation) as of now, so does RISC-V. Any vendor can implement it however they want, but they won’t have to pay anyone for using RISC-V ISA
smells like linus thinks there is going to be an ever increasing tech debt, and honestly, i think i agree with him on that one.
RISCV is likely going to eventually overstep it’s role in someplaces, and bits and pieces of it will become archaic over time.
The gap between hardware and software level abstraction is huge, and that’s really hard to fill properly. You just need a strict design criteria to get around that one.
I’m personally excited to see where RISCV goes, but maybe what we truly need is a universal software level architecture that can be used on various different CPU architectures providing maximum flexibility.
but maybe what we truly need is a universal software level architecture that can be used on various different CPU architectures providing maximum flexibility.
I think that’s called Java.
Or Emacs
but but, minecraft in java bad and stinky??
But Java is the good version of Minecraft…
unfortunately, you’re aren’t wrong.
universal software level architecture that can be used on various different CPU
Oh we already have dozens of those haha
overstep its* role in some places
username checks out
Well regardless, the world needs alternatives that are outside of restrictive US patent law and large monopolistic control. Thank god for pioneers:)
ARM Inc is an English company owned by a Japanese company
Even if that happens, still open sauce
Not really? I mean, only partially.
RISC-V is the only shot we have at usable open source hardware. I really, really hope it takes off.
It’s open source nature protects against that. People mistake Linus as being in the same boat as Stallman but Linus was only open source by circumstance, he kind infamously doesn’t seem to appreciate the role open source played in his own success.
It already directly addresses the mistakes of x86 and ARM. I don’t know what he is so worried about.
Protects against what?
What I read here is just a vague critic from him of the relation between hard- and software developer. Which will not change just because the ISA is open source. It will take some iterations until this is figured out, this is inevevable.
Soft- and hardware developers are experts in their individual fields, there are not many with enough know-how of both fields to be effective.
Linus also points out, that because of ARM before, RISC-V might have a easier time, on the software side, but mistakes will still happen.
IMO, this article doesn’t go into enough depths of the RISC-V specific issues, that it warrants RISC-V in the title, it would apply to any up and coming new ISA.
Its* open-source nature
Anyone willing to summarize those mistakes here, for those who can’t watch the video rn?
He doesn’t list what the mistakes will be. He said that he fears that because hardware people aren’t software people, that they will make the same mistakes that x86 made, which were then made by Arm later.
He did mention that fixing those mistakes was faster for Arm than x86, so that brings hope that fixing the mistakes on Risc V will take less time
Maybe, but the point is that it’s open. There’s a much higher chance that one of the companies that builds parts will make good decisions.
