[coreboot] Open systems: RISC-V and POWER8/9 [was: ME and PSP]

[Peter Stuge]

Timothy Pearson wrote:
> > The fabulous thing about RISC-V is what makes ARM successful; there
> > can and will be multiple different silicon vendors, offering products
> > with many different features and tradeoffs.
> > 
> > Some can be top performance but proprietary.
> > Some can be transparent/open but slower.
> 
> We already have this (think cheap ARM SoCs vs. a Xeon).

Which one of ARM and Xeon do you consider transparent/open?

And which one to the degree possible with a RISC-V core?


> I'm honestly surprised at the overall community betting on a long shot
> (RISC-V) vs. using what's available and open right now (POWER9); could
> anyone shed some light on these decision making processes?

Are POWER9 systems available off the shelf right now?
That's the availability metric for a decision making process.

Until systems are in stock, everything is pure speculation. Preorder
is really an edge case. Sorry. :\ But the good news is, I don't think
anyone is mentally excluding having *more* open options - quite the
opposite!

POWER and RISC-V may indeed have comparable openness, which I doubt,
but if so then RISC-V certainly has the better PR/marketing.


> An open ISA and core design does not guarantee open silicon

I already commented on that, no need to repeat.


ron minnich wrote:
> The open ISA can go both ways

Only an open ISA can go both ways *simultaneously* - I think that
many are excited about the possibility that RISC-V may, rightly so.


> RISCV vendors can create SMM.

And one vendor can choose not to. And there is a market for both.


> But just claiming that "riscv is open so there won't be
> anything proprietary" is being a bit unrealistic in my view.

For the third time (this is now getting very annoying) - noone has
claimed that.


Timothy Pearson wrote:
> It really comes down to getting people to look at POWER as something
> other than the power-hungry beast POWER8 was, and that's proving
> somewhat challenging.

There is no significant POWER visibility. I know one single name at one
single company immediately involved with an actual potentially orderable
POWER product. (You!)

I have never seen a running POWER8/9 system. I've seen two running RISC-V
systems and have ordered a third.

I am able to implement (a weak variant of) RISC-V on <100¤ hardware. Today.
Actually, already over a year ago!

So; POWER8/9 either do not really exist in a relevant way at the moment,
or they are just not reaching me, even though I have an interest in open
hardware.

I can't tell which is more accurate. And maybe there's yet another option?


//Peter