On Thu, Sep 7, 2017 at 1:07 AM Shawn citypw@gmail.com wrote:
RISC-V doesn't have NDA issues like x86 which the firmware freedom will get benefit of it.
Speaking as someone who has been working on and off with riscv for almost four years, and who has ported coreboot several times and plan 9 once, I can tell you it's not that easy. Chips being produced today will require blobs, for dram and usb at least.
RISCV does not require a license. That's the big change, and it is a great change. But that one difference is not enough to eliminate the problems we have with the x86 world today.
All the really hard parts of coreboot ports have involved things not related to the instruction set, such as DRAM, PCI configuration, and so on. All those things can be done in a proprietary way without violating RISCV rules.
I don't think we can assume that an open, unlicensed instruction set guarantees open, unlicensed, blob-free CPUs and platforms. It's just not so. If we wait for that to happen, we're going to be disappointed.
-
ron minnich